The Department of Physics at Isfahan University of Technology held an International School on “Modern Trends in Computational Materials Discovery” on 17-21 November, 2022.

.Prof. Mojtaba Alaei and Prof. Artem R. Oganov with the help of Prof. Ismaeil Abdolhosseini and Prof. S. Javad Hashemifar organized this five days activity The school consisted of two sets of programs, lectures in the mornings and workshops in the afternoons. Some well-known scientists from Russia and Italy (from ICTP) instructed keen young participants and presented their latest achievements in designing novel materials and application of methods including machine learning and evolutionary algorithms in discovering novel materials. The workshops mainly focused on USPEX, as a pioneering package for material design in the framework of evolutionary algorithms.

The International Scientific Cooperation Center held some interviews with foreign participants in which they expressed their content and satisfaction regarding the high quality of this gathering. Prof. Artem R. Oganov from the Skoltech Institute of Science and Technology, Russia, shared his thoughts on this gathering in a friendly talk. Relying on the fact that the number of publications in Physics has increased twentyfold over the last decade in Iran, he was highly satisfied with the education level of the participants and the overall quality of the school. He claimed that due to some similarities in terms of global limitations imposed on both countries, Iran and Russia need to develop their cooperation by conducting joint research.