The two-week Summer School series offers lectures by innovative scientists and provides hands-on computer lab experience with specialized software, often led by the software developers themselves.

1
Summer School on Computational Materials
ScienceProviding education on frontier research
techniques
The two-week Summer School series offers lectures
by innovative scientists and provides hands-on
computer lab experience with specialized
software, often led by the software developers
themselves.
WHY IT MATTERS The Summer Schools are a
centralized place for learning new methods,
speaking one-on-one with experts, and identifying
potential collaborators. By distributing
knowledge from large institutions to others, our
School supplements the educational experience at
smaller institutions and keeps a larger number of
young researchers competitive. On a follow-up
survey, 90 of respondents said they expect to
have science-related discussions with another
participant or instructor in the future.
2

• Wide backgrounds enrich school experience
• Participants are selected to achieve variety and
  balance between
• Students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty
• Small and large schools, and national research
  labs
• Domestic and international applicants
• Primary area of study (geology and physics)
• Within the framework of choosing appropriate and
  diverse participants, the admission committee
  offers additional support to 1) students and
  faculty at smaller state institutions, and 2)
  women and under-represented minorites.

3
Benefits of the summer school series are not
limited to local participants. The schools have a
broader impact through 1) web archives and 2)
remote participation. Scientists who cannot
attend due to timing or space constraints can
access the websites presentation slides,
input/output files, and video lectures.
Remote participation The on-site computer labs
are at maximum capacity, but more students can
participate via the Access Grid, an international
network of 200 audio-video enabled meeting rooms
and computer labs. Remote participation offers a
two-way dialogue.
Web archives Each year, the school generates 30
hours of video and 500 pages of lecture notes,
computer executable files and software tutorials.
The web archives are available within a few weeks
after the school, compared with up to two years
for printed conference proceedings.
4
2007 Summer School on Computational Materials
ScienceQuantum Monte Carlo From Minerals and
Materials to MoleculesUniversity of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign July 919, 2007
SUMMARY This school brings together scientists
from the fields of geophysics, physics,
chemistry, as well as materials science, to learn
about Quantum Monte Carlo methods and their
applications to geophysical materials. Videorecord
ings of lectures, handouts, and computer input
files are available at http//www.mcc.uiuc.edu/su
mmerschool/2007/qmc/ SPONSORS National
Science Foundation Materials Computation
Center, UIUC   Carnegie Institution of
Washington National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, UIUC Frederick Seitz Materials
Research Laboratory, UIUC Computational
Science and Engineering Program, UIUC Sponsoring
awards NSF-EAR 05-30643, NSF-EAR 05-30282,
and NSF-DMR 03-25939
INSTRUCTORS Dario Alfe, University College
London Michele Casula, University of
Illinois David Ceperley, University of
Illinois Ronald Cohen, Carnegie Institution
of Washington Neil Drummond, University of
Cambridge Ken Esler, Carnegie Institution of
Washington Claudia Filippi, Universiteit
Leiden Nigel Goldenfeld, University of
Illinois Richard Hennig, Cornell University
Susan Kieffer, University of Illinois
Jeongnim Kim, University of Illinois Pablo
Lopez Rios, University of Cambridge Nancy
Makri, University of Illinois Burkhard
Militzer, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Lubos Mitas, North Carolina State University
Rob Pennington, University of Illinois Lars
Stixrude, University of Michigan Cyrus
Umrigar, Cornell University Shiwei Zhang,
College of William and Mary Organizing
committee