Join SPARC Activities
SPARC Exchange
Every Wednesday afternoon, join the SPARC Exchange, our weekly tea-time and seminar. It’s a great time to meet informally with colleagues and see what the LANL Michigan SPARC is up to.
3:30 Tea Time: Join us every Wednesday for our social hour and tea-time, and get to know the SPARC team.
4:00 Idea Exchange: Stay for a technical exchange of ideas. The format will vary between research updates, tutorials, journal club, and occasional special visitors. The meetings will be student focused, but faculty is encouraged to come be part of the discussion. If you have suggestions for topics, please reach out via email.
Email contact: michigan-sparc@lanl.gov
SPARC Exchange Address: 3520 Green Ct, Room 4425, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
SPARC Colloquium
Once a month, we will host a hybrid SPARC Colloquium where a LANL scientist will present at U-M, or a Michigan faculty member will present at Los Alamos, on a topic relevant to current or future collaboration. Topics and schedule will be announced, usually in the SPARC Exchange time slot.
SPARC Colloquium Address: 3520 Green Ct, Room 4425, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
Recent and Upcoming Speakers:
Winter 2026
- Mesoscale Investigation of Dislocation-Grain Boundary Interactions in Metals and Alloys
Dr. Abigail Hunter, LANL Materials and Physical Data Group
Wednesday, February 25, 1:30pm, Pierpont Commons East Room, Ann Arbor, MI - Foundation Models for Discovery and Exploration in Chemical Space
Prof. Venkat Viswanathan, U-M Dept. of Aerospace Engineering
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 10am, MSL Auditorium, Los Alamos, NM
Fall 2025
- Multi-fidelity uncertainty quantification: sampling, surrogates, and applications
Prof. Alex Gorodetsky, U-M Dept of Aerospace Engineering
Wedneday, September 10, 2025, 3pm, JRO Jemez/Cochiti Room, Los Alamos, NM - Universality of the Collective Dynamics of Liquids at and away from Equilibrium— An Integrated Neutron Scattering, Theoretical, and Computational Study
Prof. Y Z, U-M Dept. of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 3pm, JRO Jemez/Cochiti Room, Los Alamos, NM
Winter 2025
- Towards Large-scale Quantum Accuracy Materials Simulations
Prof. Vikram Gavini, U-M Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Wednesday, February 19, 2025, CNLS Conference Room, Los Alamos, NM - Multidisciplinary Optimization of Complex PDE-constrained Systems: State of the Art and New Directions
Prof. Joaquim R. R. A. Martins, U-M Dept. of Aerospace Engineering
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 2pm, CNLS Conference Room, Los Alamos, NM - 30 years of sailing the seas of simulation
Tariq Aslam, LANL Physics and Chemistry of Materials Group
Wednesday, May 21, 2025, 4pm, Johnson Rooms, Lurie Engineering Center, Ann Arbor, MI
SPARC Workshops
Recent and Upcoming
- AI x Bio
March 11-12, 2026
Organizers: Alina Deshpande (B-DO), Monica Dus (UM MCDB)
2025
- Computational Materials
January 22-24, 2025
Organizers: Vikram Gavini (UM Mech. Eng.) - High Energy-Density Physics
February 25-26, 2025
Organizers: Josh Sauppe (XCP-6), Carolyn Kuranz (UM NERS) - Energetic Materials and Reactive Flows
April 9-11, 2025
Organizers: Chris Ticknor (T-1), Rebecca Lindsey (UM Chem. Eng.) - Structural Metals and Alloys
June 23-24, 2025
Organizers: Amy Clarke (Sigma-DO), Tarik Saleh (MST-DO), Amit Misra (UM MSE) - Verification of AI Surrogates
September 24-25
Organizers: Juston Moore (XCP-AI4ND), Robyn Miller (A-1), Karthik Duraisamy (UM Aero. Eng.)
What we do
SPARC includes a broad scope of LANL and University of Michigan research. The collaboration advances areas of high-energy-density-physics, fundamental physics modeling, High-Performance Computing (HPC), co-design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more.