From csc-secretary@warwick.ac.uk Tue Jul 26 14:51:59 2011
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:45:57 +0100
From: "csc-secretary, Resource" <csc-secretary@warwick.ac.uk>
To: "Rodger, Phillip" <P.M.Rodger@warwick.ac.uk>
Subject: FW: Stephanie Huntington

Dear Mark

Another letter of support 

Chris


Christine Jarvis
Centre for Scientific Computing
University of Warwick
CV4 7AL
Tel 02476 574111
Fax 02476 573133
Mobile 00447824540812
csc-secretary@warwick.ac.uk  



-----Original Message-----
From: vadim cheianov [mailto:v.cheianov@gmail.com] 
Sent: 26 July 2011 10:44
To: AutumnAcademy@hpc-sc.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Stephanie Huntington

Dear Organizers,

I am writing in support of Stephanie Huntington's application to the
Autumn Academy
on high performance computing. Stephanie is a first year PhD student
at Lancaster
University Physics. I have known her since she entered our University
as a first year undergraduate. I was the supervisor of her Masters
project on
non-abelian excitations in strongly correlated many-electron systems.
Stephanie
is a brilliant and hard working student. In my opinion, she is the
strongest
graduate from our Physics department I have seen since the beginning
of my tenure
in Lancaster in 2005. The complexity of the problems she was tackling
in her Master's thesis, involving the fractional quantum Hall effect,
non-abelian
Chern-Simons theory, braid groop representations and conformal field
theory
goes far beyond the curriculum of our MSci programme and only an
exceptional student would achieve such a degree of progress in this
direction
as she did.


Since the beginning of her PhD project Stephanie has been working on
issues
related to transport of
quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall effect. So far she has done
some
marvelous analytical work calculating tunneling matrix elements of
fractionally charged quasiparticles across a quantum point contact
from first principles using the semiclassical approximation. However,
it is traditional and, in fact, absolutely crucial that analytical
calculations
in this area be underpinned by Monte Carlo calculations for the trial
wave
functions and exact diagonalization for small systems. These will
require programming skills, which your school is an ideal place to
learn.

Mastering the methods taught at your school will be greatly beneficial
for both the project Stephanie is working on currently and her
professional
development in general.

Our university has recently built a high-end computing facility

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/iss/hec/

which is continuing to expand. Stephanie will use this facility
in her future work.

I would also like to mention that Stephanie is a very nice and outgoing
person. She will be easily involved and will definitely add
to the stimulating atmosphere of your school. It is with great
enthusiasm
that I recommend her for this school and hope that you will be able
to accept her application.

Best regards, Vadim Cheianov