Curriculum Vitae

Current Position

Scientist IV

Theoretical Division T-1

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Mail Stop B-214

Los Alamos, NM, USA, 87545

Research Experience

Technical Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory (09/2009-)

Main research interests:

  • Development of novel long-timescale atomistic simulation methodologies

  • Investigation of long-timescale dynamics in materials for energy applications, for materials in extreme environments, and for nanotechnology

  • High-performance computing in materials simulation

  • Design and implementation of EXAALT, a massively-parallel accelerated molecular dynamics code


Selected current and recent projects:

    • Molecular Dynamics at the Exascale: Spanning the Accuracy, Length and Time Scales for Critical Problems in Materials Science, DOE/ASCR ECP, Principal Investigator, $2.9M per year for 7 years

    • Accelerated Dynamics Across Computational and Physical Scales, LANL LDRD DR, Principal Investigator, $1.5M per year for 3 years

    • Data-driven Separation Agent/Solvent Design - An Integrated Simulation Experiment Approach, DOE/BES, Co-Principal investigator, $750K per year for 3 years

    • Plasma Surface Interactions: Bridging from the Surface to the Micron Frontier through Leadership Class Computing, DOE/SciDAC, Co-Investigator, $150K per year for 5 years

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA (09/2017-12/2017)

    • Senior core participant for the program Complex High-Dimensional Energy Landscapes.

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA (09/2012-12/2012)

    • Senior core participant for the program Materials defects: Mathematics, Computation, and Engineering.

Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory (01/2007-08/2009)

  • Development and application of accelerated molecular dynamics methods. Under the mentorship of Arthur F. Voter.


Education

Ph.D. Physics, Université de Montréal Montréal, Canada (2003–2006)

Computational study of the kinetics of phase separation in binary alloys with an elastic misfit

Under the supervision of Professor Laurent J. Lewis


Awarded the Gold Academic Medal of the Governor General of Canada

Awarded the Best Thesis Prize, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal


M.Sc. Physics, Université de Montréal Montréal, Canada (2001-2002)

Molecular-dynamics study of the mechanisms of laser ablation by femtosecond pulses

Under the supervision of Professor Laurent J. Lewis

Awarded the Gold Academic Medal of the Governor General of Canada


B.Sc. Physics, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada (1997-2000)

Calculation of the spectral weight of the Hubbard model using cluster-perturbation theory

Research intern under the supervision of Professor David Sénéchal

scholar.google.com

Invited talks, seminars, and short courses


72. Exascale computing and its impact on the simulation of materials, IMS Student Summer Lecture Series, June 28th 2021 (virtual)

71. A molecular-dynamics study of the diffusion of small He bubbles in tungsten, 5th International Workshop on Models and Data for Plasma-Material Interaction, June 10th 2021 (virtual)

70. Long time dynamics in a massively parallel world, Plenary talk, SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science, May 26th 2021 (plenary talk, virtual)

69. Extending the Timescales of Atomistic Simulations with Online Data-Driven Methods, SIAM Conference on Dynamical Systems, May 24th 2021 (virtual)

68. Atomistic modeling of the coupling between electric fields and bulk plastic deformation in RF structures, International Workshop on Breakdown Science and High Gradient Technology 2021, April 21st 2021 (virtual)

67. A Data-driven Approach to Long-Time Molecular Dynamics, March 18th 2021, TMS 2021 Meeting (virtual)

66. The promises and challenges of exascale computing for atomistic simulations of materials: a perspective from the EXAALT project, LANL P/T Colloquium, February 11th 2021, Los Alamos, NM

65. Long-time simulations of materials with Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, LLNL CCMS 2020 Lecture series, July 30th 3030 (virtual)

64. Long-Time Dynamics Without Predefined States—A Data-Driven Parallel Replica Dynamics Approach, December 5th 2020, MRS Fall Meeting, Boston, MA

63. Accelerated molecular dynamics, Hands-on DFT and beyond 2019, September 4th 2019, Barcelona, Spain

62. Long-time dynamics without predefined states: a data-driven Parallel Replica Dynamics approach, ICIAM2019, July 19th 2019, Valencia, Spain

61. A Local Metastability Detection Method Using Koopman Operators, SIAM Conference on dynamical systems, May 23rd 2019, Snowbird, UT

60. Parallel Approaches to Long-Time Atomistic Simulations; Decomposition, Replication, and Speculation, ACS Spring Meeting 2019, March 31st 2019, Orlando, FL

59. Parallel approaches to long-time atomistic simulations: decomposition, replication, and speculation, APS March Meeting 2019, March 5th 2019, Boston, MA

58. Strategies for Optimal Construction of Markov Chain Representations of Atomistic Dynamics and Their Application to Irradiated Materials, MRS Fall Meeting 2018, November 27th 2018, Boston, MA

57. Direct observations of shape fluctuation in long-time atomistic simulations of metallic nanoclusters, September 17th 2018, Department of physics, University Lyon I, Lyon, France

56. Parallel Approaches to Longtime Atomistic Simulations, October 17th 2018, Centre International de Rencontres Mathematiques, Marseille, France

55. Strategies for optimal construction of Markov chain representations of atomistic dynamics and their application to irradiated material, July 24th 2018, Workshop on Particle-based methods in materials science, ICMS, Edinburgh, UK

54. Parallel Approaches to Long-time Atomistic Simulations: replication, speculation, and localization, May 29th 2018, CNLS 38th Annual Conference "Rate Theory and Long Timescale Simulations", Santa Fe, NM

53. Long-Timescale Simulation of Metallic Nanoparticles Using Parallel Trajectory Splicing, December 2nd 2017, MRS 2017 Fall Meeting, Boston, MA

52. Gaining insights into the properties of materials using atomistic simulations on large-scale HPC platforms, Supercomputing 2017, November 15th 2017, Denver, CO

51. Exploiting massive parallelism to extend atomistic simulation timescales, September 29th 2017, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UC Merced, Merced, CA

50. Exploiting massive parallelism to extend atomistic simulation timescales, August 21th 2017, ACS Meeting, Washington D.C.

49. Exploiting massive parallelism to extend atomistic simulation timescales, August 21th 2017, LAMMPS Workshop, Albuquerque, NM

48. Long timescale simulation using Parallel Trajectory Splicing, July 31th 2017, Workshop on New algorithms for exploring structure and dynamics of interfaces, Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

47. Introduction to Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, July 30th 2017, Workshop on New algorithms for exploring structure and dynamics of interfaces, Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

46. Long-timescale Simulations with Accelerated Molecular Dynamics and the EXAALT package, State of the art in mesoscale and multiscale modeling, May 31st 2017, CECAM-IRL, University College Dublin, Ireland

45. Long timescale simulation using Parallel Trajectory Splicing, October 18th 2016, Department of Physics, Université Lyon I, Lyon, France

44. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Trajectory Splicing, Bridging-Time Scale Techniques and their Applications in Atomistic Computational Science, September 13th 2016, Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany

43. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Trajectory Splicing, Recent Advances in Computational Methods for Nanoscale Phenomena, August 29th 2016, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

42. Introduction to Kinetic Monte Carlo, July 14th 2016, 10th q-Bio summer school, UNM, Albuquerque, NM

41. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Replica dynamics Method, Institute for Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, May 17th 2016, Lanzhou, China

40. Introduction to Molecular Dynamics and Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, May 2016, Department of Materials Science, Tsinghua University, China (8h tutorial)

39. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Replica dynamics Method, Department of Materials Science, Tsinghua University, May 9th 2016, Beijing, China

38. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Replica dynamics Method, APS March Meeting 2016, March 16th 2016, Baltimore, MD

37. Accuracy of Kinetics in Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics, TMS 2016, February 16th 2016, Nashville, TN

36. Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Replica dynamics Method, MRS Fall meeting 2015, December 1st 2015, Boston, MA

35. Long Timescale Atomic Simulations in Materials Science, MRS Fall meeting 2015, November 29th 2015, Boston, MA

34. Introduction to Kinetic Monte Carlo, July 7th 2015, 9th q-Bio summer school, UNM, Albuquerque, NM

33. Improving canonical and grand-canonical sampling methods for materials, June 11th 2015, IPAM MDRC2015 Workshop, Lake Arrowhead, CA

32. Grand Canonical Thermodynamics of Grain Boundaries, March 18th 2015, TMS 2015, Orlando, FL

31. On the importance of timescales in the atomistic modeling of friction, October 9th 2014, MMM 2014, Berkeley, CA

30. Accuracy of Kinetics in Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics, July 7th 2014, Workshop “Searching for Reaction Coordinates and Order Parameters”, Telluride, CO

29. Accuracy of Kinetics in Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics, June 11th 2014, IPAM MDRC2014 Workshop, Lake Arrowhead, CA

28. Spanning time and length scales with atomistic simulations, May 30th 2014, EMSL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA

27. Extending atomistic simulation timescales using Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, January 28th 2014, EMSL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA

26. Introduction to Molecular Dynamics and Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, December 2013, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, China (12h tutorial)

25. Entropic Stabilization of Nanoscale Voids in Materials under Tension, July 23rd 2013, U.S. Congress on Computational Mechanics, Raleigh, NC

24. A Scalable Method to Compute Transition Rate Prefactors, June 9th 2013, SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science, Philadelphia, PA

23. Vibrational contributions to kinetics in the solid state, October 23rd 2012, Workshop on Atomistic and Mesoscale Modeling of Materials Defects, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

22. Introduction to molecular dynamics and accelerated molecular dynamics, September 11th-12th 2012, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

21. Introduction to accelerated molecular dynamics, June 22nd 2012, COSIRES Summer School, Santa Fe, NM

20. Introduction to molecular dynamics and accelerated molecular dynamics, June 14th 2012, EFRC Summer School, Knoxville, TN

19. Simulating the slow structural evolution of materials using accelerated molecular dynamics, April 24th 2012, International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films, San Diego, CA

18. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods, March 9th 2012, Julich Forschungszentrum, Julich, Germany

17. Recent developments and applications in accelerated molecular dynamics, December 13th 2011, Department of Chemistry, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

16. Recent developments and applications in accelerated molecular dynamics, November 17th 2011, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

15. Recent developments and applications in accelerated molecular dynamics, June 15th 2011, Department of Physics, Université Lyon I, Lyon, France.

14. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods, December 11th 2010, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

13. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods, December 9th 2010, Department of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

12. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods, December 8th 2010, Department of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China.

11. Bridging the timescale gap between simulations and experiments using Accelerated Molecular Dynamics, October 11-13 2010, Workshop on Evolution and Control of Complexity, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL.

10. Recent developments and applications in accelerated molecular dynamics, September 18th 2010, Max Born Symposium on Multiscale Modeling of Real Materials, Worclaw, Poland.

9. Accelerated molecular dynamics simulation of the tensile behavior of silver nanowires on experimentally accessible timescales, March 28-April 1 2010, International Conference on Computational and Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Las Vegas, NV.

8. Accelerated molecular dynamics for complex systems, August 26 2009, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA.

7. Accelerated molecular dynamics for complex systems, July 23 2009, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

6. Self-learning bond-boost hyperdynamics, July 15 2008, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany

5. Self-learning bond-boost hyperdynamics, June 23 2008, Searching for Reaction Coordinates and Order Parameters, Telluride, CO

4. Self-learning bond-boost hyperdynamics, June 11 2008, IPAM’s Bridging Time and Length Scales in Materials Science and Bio-Physics, Lake Arrowhead, CA

3. Accélérer la dynamique moléculaire à l’aide de l’hyperdynamique adaptative, May 12 2008, Department of Physics, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

2. Accelerated molecular dynamics, April 26 2008, Uncertainty Quantification Workshop, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

1. Multiscale model for the study of phase separation in alloys with coherent elastic misfit, December 15 2005, Universitat Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany


Presentations at international conferences

13. Danny Perez and Thomas Swinburne, Strategies for optimal construction of Markov Models from atomistics, MMM 2018, October 2018, Osaka, Japan

12. Danny Perez, and Arthur F. Voter, Long timescale simulation using the Parallel Trajectory Splicing, MMM 2016, October 2016, Dijon, France

11. Danny Perez, Arthur F. Voter, Timothy Germann, Entropic stabilization of nanoscale voids in materials under tension, APS March Meeting, February 2012, Boston, MA

10. Danny Perez, Chun-Wei Pao, Sriram Swaminarayan and Arthur F. Voter, Accelerated molecular dynamics simulation of the tensile behavior of silver nanowires on experimentally accessible timescales, APS March Meeting, March 2010, Portland, OR

9. Danny Perez, Chun-Wei Pao, Sriram Swaminarayan and Arthur F. Voter, Exploiting the cell architecture on Roadrunner for long-time atomistic dynamics, International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, November 2008, Austin, TX

8. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Multiscale model for the study of phase separation in alloys with coherent elastic misfit, MRS Fall Meeting, November 2006, Boston, MA

7. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Multiscale model for the study of phase separation in alloys with coherent elastic misfit, APS March Meeting, March 2006, Baltimore, MD

6. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Multiscale model for the study of phase separation in alloys with coherent elastic misfit, Micromechanics and Microstructure Evolution: Modeling Simulation and Experiments, September 2005, Madrid, Spain

5. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Thermodynamic evolution of solids during laser ablation under ultra-short laser pulses: dependance on pulse duration and optical penetration depth, APS March Meeting, March 2004, Montréal, Canada

4. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Laser ablation of solids under ultrashort laser pulses: A molecular-dynamics study, 7th International Conference on Laser Ablation, October 2003, Hersonissos, Greece

3. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Molecular-dynamics study of ablation of solids under femtosecond laser pulses, APS March Meeting, March 2003, Austin, TX

2. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Ablation of solids under femtosecond laser pulses: a molecular-dynamics study, International School on Quantum Electronics, September 2002, Varna, Bulgaria

1. Danny Perez and Laurent J. Lewis, Molecular-dynamics study of the mechanisms of ablation by femtosecond laser pulses, APS March Meeting, March 2002, Indiannapolis, IN

Teaching/Mentoring

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory (2009-): Mentor of postdoctoral researchers (8), summer graduate (2) and undergraduate (2) students.

  • Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (2013): Short course: Introduction to molecular dynamics and accelerated molecular dynamics.

  • Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA (2009, 2012): Industrial mentor for the RIPS undergraduate research program.

  • Materials Modeling Laboratory, Oxford University, UK (2008): Week-long course: Infrequent event systems and accelerated molecular dynamics.

  • CEA-EDF-INRIA Summer School Saint-Lambert-des-Bois, France (2007): Week-long course: Infrequent event systems and accelerated molecular dynamics.

  • Université de Montréal Montréal, Canada (2005): Lecturer: Introduction to computational physics (80 students)

  • Université de Montréal Montréal, Canada (2001–2004) Teaching assistant: Electromagnetics and Introduction to computational physics.

Awards and Scholarships

  • Distinguished Postdoc Mentor Award, Los Alamos National Laboratory (2021)

  • Distinguished Student Mentor Award, Los Alamos National Laboratory (2019)

  • Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory (2007)

  • Best Thesis, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal (2007)

  • Academic Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada (2007)

  • Dean’s Honor List, Université de Montréal (2007)

  • Academic Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada (2003)

  • Dean’s Honor List, Université de Montréal (2003)

  • Postdoctoral scholarship, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (2007- 2009)

  • Postdoctoral scholarship, Quebec’s Fund for Research on Nature and Technology (2007-2009)

  • Bechtel scholarship (2005)

  • J.A. De Sève scholarship (2004)

  • Toronto-Dominion Financial Group scholarship (2003-2004)

  • Postgraduate scholarship, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (2002- 2005)

  • Postgraduate scholarship, Quebec’s Fund for Research on Nature and Technology (2001-2005)

  • Admission scholarship, Université de Montréal (2001)

  • Undergraduate Student Research Award, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (1999-2000)

Community service

  • Referee for: Acta Materialia, Computational Materials Science, Computer Physics Communications, Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Nuclear Materials, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology, Nanotechnology, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Physical Review E.

  • Outstanding reviewer, Journal of Nuclear Materials (2015)

  • Member of LANL’s LDRD review committee (2011-2014).

  • Member of LANL’s Institutional Computing allocation committee (2011-2014).

  • Member of the NSF's XSEDE allocation committee (2015-2018).

  • Symposium organizer (TMS 2016, IPAM 2017).

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