Brian Vinter new Vice Dean at Aarhus University

A few of his many tasks have been the within the field of high performance computing and industrial applications. He has been the head of the eScience group at the Niels Bohr Institute and in that capacity had the responsibility for the development of a data driven research infrastructure at faculty level.

The eScience group continues to run several projects and many PHD students, which will continue uninterruptedly, but headed by someone else. The organizational structure in the group is not yet in place, but the continuation of its many activities will not change.

The nature of the activities will also continue unobstructed. They are mainly in the field of theory and application of computerscience, and all activities right from modelling to the development of hardware will continue. 18 months ago the High Performance Computing activity changed its organizational structure to become located at the Faculty of Science, but the employees working with HPC will remain physically at the Niels Bohr Institute and coordinate on a daily basis with the eScience Group.

Supervision of the many, talented students seeking opportunities and projects in eScience will continue to be of the highest priority to the group.

Head of the Niels Bohr Institute, Jan Westenkær Thomsen:

Brian has played a very important part at the Niels Bohr Institute in the last decade, building a very successful, dynamic and active research group in eScience, High Performance Computing (HPC) and advanced data storage. Alongside his research activities Brian has secured vital access to advanced computer infrastructure like the HPC Center and the Erda storage facility. This has been the case for not only the Niels Bohr Institute, but for the Science Faculty and the University of Copenhagen as well, with most of UCPH employees benefitting from the facilities. The High Performance Computer Facility – the HPC Center – the brain child of Brian, is crucial to many of the simulations and complicated calculations performed on anything and everything from astrophysical phenomena to complex biological systems.

The Institute is working hard on securing the strong scientific anchoring of Brian’s research field and activities at NBI. Obviously, we are very sad having to say goodbye to Brian, who has been defining the NBI profile on eScience both scientifically and in teaching in a very convincing way. We are looking forward to a continued and fruitful collaboration with Brian in his new position as Vice Dean at the Technical University in Aarhus.