Chairman’s Address, September 2020

Dear colleagues and members,

I have a mixed bag of news. Starting with a very sad one, Professor José Redondo passed away on July 14, 2020, in Barcelona at the age of 64. José has been a very active member of ERCOFTAC and chaired SIG 14 on Stably Stratified and Rotating Turbulence for many years. His proactive and social style helped to grow our network and his unique way of interaction lightened up many of our committee meetings. We will sorely miss him! An obituary will be published in the next ERCOFTAC bulletin. We want to express our deepest sympathy and sincere condolences to his family and those close to him.

The Corona pandemic is still affecting significantly how we are operating. Owing to the situation at hand, and in close consultation with the local organizing committee, the Executive Committee of ERCOFTAC decided to cancel the ERCOFTAC Autumn Festival 2020 in Rome scheduled for October 8th and 9th. As a consequence, and in line with our contingency plans:

• The ERCOFTAC Scientific Programme and Knowledge Network Committee (SPC and KNC) meetings as well as the meetings of the Management Board and the General Assembly are now planned as videoconferences on Friday, October 9th 2020.
• The 15th da Vinci Finalist event will be shifted to the Spring Festival in Cambridge on April 22nd 2021.
• The Italian PC will host the next Autumn Festival in Rome in 2021 instead.

On a more upbeat note, members of ERCOFTAC, coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, had successfully proposed The Center of Excellence in Combustion (CoEC) in response to the “Centers of Excellence in Exascale Computing” call for proposals within the EU’s Horizon 2020 program. The CoEC is starting October 1st and will address fundamental challenges related to the simulation of combustion systems. ERCOFTAC has supported this proposal with the promise to help with dissemination of the results. In particular, ERCOFTAC committed to add suitable test cases to its public knowledge database if they meet editorial standards, to facilitate or to help in organizing trainings and workshops, and to provide (easier) access to its community through various means of publication. We are looking forward to working with the CoEC!

Thanks for all you are doing for the ERCOFTAC community – working together is now more important than ever! Stay healthy and safe!

Prof. Dominic von Terzi,
Chairman of ERCOFTAC