The Thirteenth (13th) International School/Symposium for Space Simulations; Los Angeles, California; September 6-14, 2018

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is to support student travel to the International School for Space Simulations (ISSS). It was first held in 1982 in Japan as a joint collaboration between leading scientists from the US, Asia and Europe, in order to teach basic simulation techniques to students going into this growing field. The first meeting was a great success and since that time ISSS has been held on average every 2 to 3 years rotating locations between Europe, Asia, and the US. The next ISSS meeting will be the 13th in the series and following the tradition of rotating between Asia, Europe and the US will be held in the United States at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) from September 6-14, 2018. This project is for support for (non-UCLA) students to be able to attend ISSS-13. The ISSS meeting has provided new generations of students with a basic understanding of the numerical simulation techniques and is for many their first exposure to cutting edge space science research. Feedback from students over the years who have attended ISSS meetings has been overwhelmingly positive, with some saying it was their favorite meeting they attended as a student. Scores of previous ISSS students have gone on to careers in space plasma simulations as researchers, professors and civil servants at NSF and NASA. Since space science is an international endeavor, the international aspect of this meeting opens future space scientists and simulators to the world at large and initiates contacts and collaborations among scientists, researchers and students that last a lifetime. The first four days of the ISSS meeting comprise the school portion and include intensive hands-on training with experts in the field such that when finished students will learn how different types of codes work, including particle in cell (PIC), hybrid and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), and will have run the codes themselves to produce output and graph the results. Basic simulation codes are given to the students, which are theirs to keep after the meeting for further use and study. The symposium portion of the meeting is held immediately after the school portion and allows the students who have just learned the basics of the various codes to interact with world experts who conduct cutting edge research in space science. The environment of the symposium is maintained to be student friendly whereby students can feel free to ask basic questions and interact with top scientists in smaller groups or one on one sessions, either at the science presentations, poster sessions or social events meant to foster teaching and collaboration. This school and symposium approach has proven over the years to be very effective for students to maximize their knowledge gain from the meeting. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.