News

Psi-k 2025, the largest conference worldwide for materials theory and prediction, electronic structure and ab-initio simulations, took place from 25 to 28 August at the SwissTech Convention center on the EPFL Campus in Lausanne. It attracted over 1,300 participants who could attend 345 talks overall, with 6 plenary talks, 35 symposia organized in 6 parallel sessions, and a poster session including over 760 posters. MARVEL Director and EPFL professor Nicola Marzari gave the opening plenary lecture  on 25 August. The event was a huge success and showcased the growth and livelihood of the computational materials science community. 

As part of the summer camp "Matériaux super géniaux" organized by the EPFL Science Outreach department and supported by the NCCR MARVEL, 20 girls aged 11 to 13 could discover some secrets of materials simulation through a visit of THEOS lab at EPFL, part of the NCCR MARVEL. They could also learn how to conduct an interview and practice it with MARVEL scientific manager Lidia Favre-Quattropani. A look back at these activities.

We are happy to announce that Veronika Lamparská (Univ. Stuttgart), Sofia Petrova (KU Leuven), and Mridhula Venkatanarayanan (EPFL) were granted INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships after the April 2025 call. The three women will join MARVEL labs for a 6-month Master's research project — congratulations!

The MARVEL Director and EPFL professor becomes the tenth physicist in history to be appointed to the prestigious chair at the University of Cambridge, previously held by the likes of James Clerk Maxwell, J J Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, William Lawrence Bragg and Nevill Mott. Marzari will take up the post in September 2026. Commenting on the appointment, Professor Mete Atatüre, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, said that the field of electronic structure theory is now "achieving its long sought holy grail: predictive accuracy, where first-principles, quantum mechanical simulations can accurately describe the behaviour of interacting electrons and ions". 

Fifteen high school students had the opportunity to participate in the summer camp on computational materials science organized from 23 to 27 June in Lausanne, organized by MARVEL with the EPFL Education Outreach Department. For the first two days, the programme focussed on an introduction to Python programming, based both on lectures and exercises, while the last three days were dedicated respectively to exercises on cellular automata, molecular dynamics and machine learning. The programme also included visits to several computational and experimental facilities at EPFL.

Several MARVEL members contributed to the 8th African School on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications in Accra, Ghana. This edition involved 51 participants, from 17 different African countries, selected from over 170 applications. The programme included one week of theory and exercise, and one for developing projects. After eight editions the programme, that is co-sponsored by MARVEL, CECAM and ETH4D (Swiss funding scheme for collaborations with the Global South), is having a significant impact on the African scientific community, and has helped many African researchers progress in their careers. 

An EPFL professor and group leader in MARVEL's Pillar 2,  Machine Learning Platform for Molecules and Materials, Zdeborová has received funding for the project "Statistical physics of attention and sequence modelling with neural networks", that will leverage methods from the statistical physics of disordered systems to generate insights that can enhance the training algorithms and architecture design of future AI systems.

The 2025 Berni J. Alder CECAM prize has been awarded to Giulia Galli, Professor at the University of Chicago and Head of MARVEL's Scientific Advisory Board. The Prize recognizes exceptional contributions to the field of microscopic simulation of matter and is awarded every three years. It recognizes Galli's  transformative contributions to computational molecular science in the domain of novel methods for large-scale electronic structure and molecular dynamics simulations.

MARVEL and EPFL's Science Outreach Department are pleased to announce equal opportunity initiatives targeting girls and boys for coming fall. Registration for the science workshop Diamants, alu, caoutchouc, ils sont fous ces matériaux (girls 7-10 years old), for the Maths en jeu workshops (girls and boys 8-15 years old), and for the Coding club des filles (girls 11-15 years old) in the French part of Switzerland will open on 15 May at 10am. Don't miss the opportunity as these activities fill up quickly!

"Pursue your career while raising a family." This is what the SNSF proposes with the Flexibility Grants. This measure is dedicated to yourg parents who are PhD students and posdocs working within the NCCR.

Registration to the science summer camps organized by the EPFL's Science Outreach Department in August are opening on Monday 3 March at 13:30 and will fill up quickly. With the objective of promoting MARVEL-related fields, especially toward girls, and encouraging them to choose scientific and engineering careers, MARVEL is supporting the summer camp in chemistry for girls and boys 11-13 years old (4 to 8 August 2025) and the summer camp on materials science Matériaux super géniaux for girls 11-13 years old (11 to 15 August 2025). 

The permanent exhibition Materials in Motion can be visited in the entryway of the EPFL campus's MXF building. It presents innovative engineering materials encased within resin blocks mounted on metal rods arranged around a central column, and accompanied by explanatory texts. The materials covered include crystals, perovskite solar cells, thermally drawn functional fibers, 3D-printed metals, dispersed microparticles, each with an explanation of the ongoing research surrounding it. MARVEL supported the installation and has contributed samples materials and contents on such topics as Weyl semimetals, solid-state batteries, and the “wonder material” jacutingaite.