Every year the grad students host a pumpkin-carving party, and this year a student in my computational physics class contributed a #julialang pumpkin. I'm quite proud 😂

www.dmsussman.org/assets/teach... dives into ODEs, starting with the humble Euler's method. The module's focus is on building a modular N-body framework, and progresses from RK methods to the physics of symplectic integrators and shadow Hamiltonians, and ends with an intro to molecular dynamics.

Running in parallel with the language intro, www.dmsussman.org/assets/teach... discusses the craft of computational science: version control with Git, sane project architecture, and designing reproducible experiments (skills I wish we taught more explicitly to grad students everywhere!)

www.dmsussman.org/assets/teach... is a hands-on intro to Julia, using the problem of calculating pi in increasingly unusual ways as a running theme. It culminates in a method from a physics paper that is one of the few calculations to ever make me laugh out loud.

I'm excited that, after a long pandemic hiatus, the Atlanta area "Soft Matter Days" are back up and running! Thanks to Itamar Kolvin and Vida Jamali for kicking things off by hosting at Georgia Tech last year, and this year it's Emory's turn!
physics.emory.edu/news/soft-ma...

Two Ph.D. defenses from the lab in one week! Very proud of (Dr!) Tomi Obadiya!

Very proud of how Dr. Packard handled the defense!

Also extremely proud as the second grad student to join my group gets ready for his Ph.D. defense!
...someone should remind me in the future not to let students schedule thesis defenses within two days of each other!

Extremely proud as the very first grad student to join my group gets ready for his Ph.D. defense!
Also, I can't help but notice that he seems to have tried to make his thesis title even cooler than it already was.