A week of celebrating all things science!

This week we celebrated National Science Week at Pawsey.

2021 Premier’s Science Awards

The week started with an incredible 2021 Premier’s Science Awards gala night where Mark Stickells, our ED, joined the attendees to celebrate the finalists of the awards – 22  Western Australia’s outstanding scientists. The ceremony took place at the WA Museum Boola Bardip on Monday, 16 August.

The awards are a keystone in the Western Australian government’s efforts to raise the profile of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in Western Australia. 

During the gala ceremony, UWA’s Prof Eric May was named the Scientist of the Year. Professor Eric May is an internationally recognised leader in fluid science, thermodynamics, metrology and natural gas engineering. Prof May has also been part of the Pawsey community.

Liam Scarlett, from Curtin University, received the ExxonMobil Student Scientist of the Year award. Liam is completing a PhD in theoretical physics, focussing on modelling the fundamental reactions in fusion, medical, and astrophysical plasmas. Liam’s research included developing a theory and suite of computer programs to produce the most detailed database of electron-molecule reaction probabilities to date, which scientists working on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor used. In addition, Liam has used Pawsey services extensively as part of his research, working with a world leader in atomic collision theory, Prof Igor Bray and a team member on a Pawsey Centre for Extreme-scale Readiness (PaCER) program, helping establish Australia’s research platform for extreme-scale computing.

Dr Eleanor Sansom and Professor Zheng-Xiang Li from Curtin University, Professor Craig Valli from Edith Cowan University, and Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research’s Nikhilesh Bappoo were Pawsey researchers nominated for the awards.

Congratulations to all nominees, finalists and winners!

Magnus’s last dance: Saying goodbye via a FB virtual tour

On Tuesday, we hosted a virtual tour on Facebook to farewell Magnus. The event celebrated the varied and life-impacting science that has taken place in Australia on Magnus, one of our best-known supercomputers. The event reached over 1k people and continues to be viewed. It was a fun event to participate in, and we were told that it was also fun to watch. If you have not watched it, you can still do so here: https://fb.watch/7uPuqxfsc5/

2021 NCMAS Allocation Call has opened

Adding to the excitement that comes with the annual call for 2021 NCMAS Allocations, was our inclusion of Setonix to the call!

This is the first time that Pawsey’s new HPE Cray EX Supercomputer, Setonix, will be available via meritorious access to Australian researchers.

2021/2022 Call for Student Interns

This week, Pawsey also announced our annual call for students for the Pawsey Summer Internship. The call for students for the 10-week, paid, 2021/2022 summer internship program will remain open until September 6.

Welcome to Acacia & Banksia!

Last but not least, we announced the procurement of the newly expanded storage infrastructure, which we call Acacia and Banksia.

Pawsey will become the home to one of the largest research-focused object storage systems in the world, offering 130 petabytes of online and offline storage. Acacia alone offers 60 PB of object storage, making it easier for research groups to share and access data in flexible ways. 

WA Premier's Science Awards celebrated 20 annivaresary- Pawsey researchers among the finalists and winners

Multi-tier storage system including 60PB of object storage

Specificacions for the new storage capability at Pawsey