The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) and Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has announced a new lecture series featuring national authorities on ultrascale scientific simulation. The availability of supercomputers capable of sustained petaflops performance within the next several years will create numerous opportunities to advance scientific and engineering knowledge by computer modeling of previously intractable problems. The “Distinguished Lecture Series on Petascale Simulation” will be introduced in May 2006 with the goal of drawing attention to the scientific breakthroughs that will be enabled by petascale computing, and the modeling, algorithmic and architectural challenges that must be tackled to achieve science at the petascale level. “ICES, TACC and UT Austin as a whole are committed to understanding how to best capitalize on the next generation of supercomputers to address petascale-level scientific grand challenges,” said Dr. Tinsley Oden, associate vice president for research and director of ICES. Dr. Jay Boisseau, director of TACC, said, “We intend to aggressively upgrade our infrastructure and conduct new R&D to provide petascale computing capability and support the scientific breakthroughs it will enable. The speakers’ vision and insights will help us focus and accelerate our efforts.” Lectures will be held at 3:30pm (Central time) in the Avaya Auditorium in the Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences building (ACES 2.302) on the university campus, and will be broadcast live via the Web and archived for subsequent viewing. For more information, please visit: its Web site. Summary of Lectures for 2006: May 23: “Petaflops, Seriously” Dr. David Keyes, Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics Columbia University June 22: “Modeling Coastal Hydrodynamics and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita” Dr. Clint Dawson, Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences The University of Texas at Austin September 26: Title TBA Dr. Dimitri Kusnezov, Director of Advanced Simulation and Computing National Nuclear Security Administration October 31: Title TBA Dr. Klaus Schulten, Swanlund Professor of Physics Department of Physics and Beckman Institute University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign November 28: “Towards Forward and Inverse Earthquake Modeling on Petascale Computers” Dr. Omar Ghattas, Jackson Chair of Computational Geosciences Jackson School of Geosciences and Department of Mechanical Engineering Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) The University of Texas at Austin