euroCC Portugal

IUPAP Early Career Scientist Prize awarded to a researcher of a portuguese institution

Marija Vranic is the first researcher affiliated with a Portuguese institution (Instituto Superior Técnico) to receive this award. Much of the work she has been developing in plasma physics involves simulations, in which supercomputing resources have been essential.

Marija Vranic is the first researcher associated with a Portuguese institution to receive the IUPAP (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) Early Career Scientist Prize. IUPAP’s mission is “to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the application of physics toward solving problems of concern to humanity.”

The prize was awarded in the subarea of plasma physics, in which Marija Vranic investigates extreme phenomena in the interaction of ultra-intense lasers with plasmas and particle acceleration.

A crucial part of this research is based on simulations, to which HPC resources are fundamental. To this end, Marija Vranic was awarded around 50 million core-hours over the last three years in TIER-0 machines through the PRACE and EuroHPC programs.