Faculty
Francois Gygi
Professor of Applied Science
Research Focus:
Computational Materials Science, First-Principles Molecular Dynamics, Electronic structure theory, Parallel numerical algorithms.
Contact Information:
Web: Research Group Web Page
Office: 3013 Engineering III
Biography:
M.Sc. Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (1983); Ph.D.
Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (1988); Postdoctoral
Researcher, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (1989-1990);
Postdoctoral Researcher, IBM Research Laboratory, Zurich, Switzerland
(1991-1992); Senior Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(1993-1998); Computer Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Livermore, CA (1998-2005); Professor of Applied Science, University of
California, Davis (2005-present).
Teaching and Instruction:
Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers, EAD115 (Winter)
Research Interests:
My research interests include the development of accurate numerical simulation methods for applications in computational materials science, as well as computational physics and chemistry. I am involved in the development of algorithms for First-Principles Molecular Dynamics, a simulation method that combines a calculation of atomic trajectories with a quantum mechanical description of electronic properties. This method is widely used to explore the properties of solids, liquids, nanoparticles and biomolecules. First-principles simulations are computationally expensive and require the use of large parallel computers. The integration of efficient parallel numerical algorithms in simulation codes is an important part of our research.