Master in Computational Science
- Overview
- Study Program
- Career Prospects
- Schools
- Faculty
- External Lecturers
- Application
- Fees and Grants
- Contact
Overview
Master in Computational Science
The Master of Science degree in Computational Science (MCS) at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) offers students the opportunity to acquire an in-depth understanding and set of skills in computational science, numerical simulation, applied mathematics, statistics, and data science. It provides an innovative combination of methodological and applied competencies in both computational and data science, which endow students with the knowledge and skills that are needed to operate at the forefront of science and industry.
Computational Science is not to be confused with Computer Science, which deals with the science and engineering of computers. Computational Science represents a broader approach to interdisciplinary problems and projects, using computer simulations in model based approaches that represent the interaction between theory and experiment.
Goal and Content
The Master in Computational Science (MCS) program is an exciting new approach to understanding complex systems in a broad range of knowledge areas including the natural and physical sciences, the social sciences, the life sciences, management science and medical science. By integrating computer simulation, mathematical modeling, numerical analysis, and data analysis, recent developments in computational science are making possible what was unthinkable only few years ago. Problems that are inaccessible to traditional experimental and empirical methods can now be addressed thanks to new techniques in algorithmic modeling and the increasing speed of modern supercomputers.
The MCS program combines courses from computer science, mathematics, statistics and data analysis to build application-oriented competences in simulation science and data science. Students enrolled in the MCS program acquire valuable and much sought-after analytical skills through direct involvement in modeling projects addressing a wide range of real-world problems spanning many interdisciplinary applications.
The program introduces students to the university’s blend of innovative scientific research and real world applications, thus providing an excellent foundation for a career in industry and science. Students may emphasize numerical software, mathematical modeling, deterministic and probabilistic theory, computer simulation, or data science. Our graduates are ready to pursue professional careers in research, engineering, scientific computing, data science, data and business analytics, computational medicine, and information systems.
For the master’s thesis, students can participate in ongoing research projects at the ICS, the IDIDS, or the Faculty of Informatics. Topics include Numerical Analysis, High-Performance Computing, Geo-Science, Computational Engineering, Optimization, Computational (Bio-) Mechanics and Fluid-Mechanics, Computational Medicine, Drug-Design, Computational Finance, or Shape Analysis. Interested students will also be given the possibility to participate in ongoing research projects. Elective courses and the master thesis allow students to tailor their learning experience to their individual interests and professional objectives while creating innovative combinations of knowledge across multiple disciplines.
Awarded Degree
After the successful completion of the programme, students will be awarded a Master of Science in Computational Science.
News
Visit the Master in Computational Science Facebook page: facebook
Study Program
The Master of Science in Computational Science program consists of four semesters of full-time study (120 ECTS). It offers courses in numerical mathematics and computer science, together with a wide range of more application-oriented courses. It finishes with a master’s thesis in the form of a half–year project, worth 30 ECTS, which can be carried out in an industrial or research setting. Selected block courses are taught by distinguish professors from other prominent academic institutions and international research centres, e.g., Stanford, University of Erlangen, University of Texas at Austin, The University of British Columbia, or Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) .
Download the detailed leaflet for the edition 2016-2016: Master program leaflet
First Semester
Course | ECTS | Professors/Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|
Mandatory (24 ECTS) | Introduction to Differential Equations | 9 | Krause |
Software Atelier: Differential Equations | 3 | Kourounis | |
Numerical Algorithms | 3 | Hormann | |
Practice of Simulation & Data Sciences | 3 | Limongelli / Angelopoulos | |
High-Performance Computing | 6 | Schenk | |
Elective (6 ECTS) | Introduction to Statistics | 6 | Mira |
Deterministic Methods | 6 | Horenko |
Second Semester
Course | ECTS | Professors / Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|
Mandatory (12 ECTS) | Optimization and Multiscale Methods | 6 | Krause |
Software Atelier: Simulation, Data Science & Supercomputing | 6 | Schenk | |
Elective (6 ECTS) | Computational Fluid Dynamics* | 3 | Faculty |
Software Engineering for Computational Science* | 3 | Faculty | |
Fast Solvers* | 3 | Serra Capizzano | |
Node-Level Performance Engineering* | 3 | Wellein, Hager | |
Computational Data-based Imaging* | 3 | Haber | |
Elective (12 ECTS) | Advanced Computer Architectures | 6 | Pozzi |
Geometric Algorithms | 6 | Papadopoulou | |
Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition | 6 | Bronstein | |
Stochastic Methods | 6 | Horenko |
*Some of these courses will be offered on a bi-yearly basis.
Third Semester
Course | ECTS | Professors / Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|
Mandatory (18 ECTS) | Preparation MSc Thesis | 6 | Faculty |
Computational Biology and Drug Design | 6 | Limongelli | |
Advanced Discretization Methods | 6 | Pivkin | |
Elective (12 ECTS) | Econometrics | 3 | Gagliardini |
Large-Scale Optimization | 3 | Saunders | |
Intelligent Systems | 6 | Schmidhuber | |
Molecular Dynamics | 3 | Parrinello |
Fourth Semester
Course | ECTS | Professors / Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|
Mandatory (27 ECTS) | MSc Thesis | 24 | Faculty |
Data Assimilation | 3 | Reich | |
Elective (3 ECTS) | 3 ECTS can be obtained with elective courses chosen from any other Master course offered by the Faculty of Informatics or Economics. | 3 | Faculty |
Please be aware that slight changes in the study programme may occur. For the general teaching timetable please refer to: www.inf.usi.ch/orario_corsi.htm.
A number of elective courses can be selected from other Master programs available at USI such as Informatics, Cyber-Physical and Embedded Systems, and Economics.
With the guidance of the Master Director, students will be encouraged to set up an individual study plan that includes appropriate elective courses. The Master Director will advise and accompany students through the entire two-year course of study.
Career Prospects
Career opportunities for computational scientists are continuously expanding and changing. The future is very promising for graduates with in-depth knowledge and understanding of mathematical modellling and computer systems. The advanced technical and problem-solving skills developed by our graduates are highly valued by employers. In addition, a successful completion of the MCS also provides preferential access to the PhD in Computational Science offered at the Università della Svizzera italiana.
Why study at USI Lugano?
The MCS program is managed by the Institute of Computational Science (ICS, Faculty of Informatics), a central node in a network of advanced research institutions. Besides strong international connections, this network includes other Swiss universities such as ETH, EPFL, Uni Basel, Uni Bern, and Uni Lausanne. In Ticino, other nodes of this network include the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) focusing on machine learning, intelligent decision support systems and bio-inspired systems; The Interdisciplinary Institute of Data Science (IDIDS) focusing on complex network science, social science, and all aspects of working with data from retrieval through decision making; The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), home of one of the fastest supercomputers in the world; The Cardiocentro Ticino, a state-of-the art university clinic, highly specialised in Cardiology; and Istituto Ricerche Solari Locarno (IRSOL), a research institute in Locarno devoted to solar physics. This network with global reach provides students with access to some of the most active and exciting career opportunities open today in the world of research and industry.
In Computational Science and the emerging field of Data Science, USI offers:
Competence
Largest and most important Institute of Computational Science in Switzerland, research in nearly all related disciplines of simulation and data sciences
Industrial collaborations
Industrial collaborations with established national and international companies
Practical experience
Student research projects in research groups and companies
Direct and individual support
National and international summer schools, mentoring, small classes, small tutorial groups, student advisory service, career services
Interdisciplinary skills
Teamwork, presentation techniques, management and personality training, access to university courses spanning multiple disciplines in other faculties
Lugano as a versatile place of study
Many possibilities for cultural, sporting and leisure activities
Excellent career perspectives
Due to a shortage in skilled personnel in the field of information technology in simulation and data sciences
Schools
After the end of the second semester the MSC students have the opportunity to attend annual summer or autumn schools which will be organized by the Institute of Computational Science, or the InterDisciplinary Institute of Data Science, or CSCS.
Upcoming Courses
Winter School 2016
Uncertainty Quantification
Organized by USI, December 15-19, 2016
Autumn School 2016
Performance Monitoring and Reproducibilty
Organized by USI and University of Basel, Basel, September 15, 2016
Summer School 2016
Effective High Performance Computing
Organized by USI and CSCS, Hotel Serpiano, Mount San Giorgio, July 17-28, 2016
Example of Past Courses
Summer School 2015
Cardiac Modeling and Simulation
Organized by USI, Center for Computational Medicine in Cardiology (CCMC), Lugano. August 24-28, 2015
Summer School 2015
Effective High Performance Computing
Organized by USI and CSCS, Hotel Serpiano, Mount San Giorgio, July 20-30, 2015 (Youtube Video)
Summer School 2014
Computer Simulations in Science and Engineering
Organized by USI and CSCS, Lugano, July8-19, 2014
Faculty
Faculty Lecturers from Universita della Svizzera italiana
Prof. Michael Bronstein received the Ph.D. in computer science (2007) from the Technion in Israel. His main research interests are geometric methods in computer vision, pattern recognition, and computer graphics. Prof. Bronstein’s research was featured in international news and recognized by several awards, including the prestigious ERC grant (2012). He has served on program committees of major conferences in his field and was keynote speaker in numerous international symposia. Prof. Bronstein is also actively involved in technology transfer and consulting. His start-up track record includes Novafora (2004-2009 as co-founder and VP of video technology) and Invision (2009-2012 as one of principle technologists). Since the acquisition of Invision by Intel in 2012, Michael has also served as a Research Scientist at Intel, where he was one of the key algorithm developers for the RealSense 3D sensor.
Website or personal page: Prof. Michael Bronstein
Courses: Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition
Prof. Illia Horenko is an associate professor in the faculty of informatics and the Institute of Computational Science of the University of Lugano. He received a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Free University (FU) of Berlin in 2004 and spent several years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Biocomputing Group and Climate Research Group at the FU Berlin, before joining the faculty of mathematics and computer science of the FU Berlin as an assistant professor in 2008. His research interests are focused on the development and practical implementation of data analysis algorithms and time series analysis approaches. Published applications of the methods developed by I. Horenko include problems from climate research, economics, biophysics, engineering and sociology. Prof. Horenko has published over 40 papers in the professional literature. He was a co-organizer of several big scientific programs and is a frequent reviewer for international funding agencies and the top journals in his field.
Website or personal page: Prof. Illia Horenko
Courses: Deterministic Methods, Stochastic Methods
Prof. Kai Hormann is a full professor in the Faculty of Informatics at USI. He received a PhD in computer science from the University of Erlangen in 2002 and spent two years as a postdoctoral research fellow at Caltech in Pasadena and the CNR in Pisa, before joining Clausthal University of Technology as an assistant professor in 2004. During the winter term 2007/2008 he visited Freie Universität Berlin as a BMS substitute professor and came to Lugano as an associate professor in 2009. His research interests are focussed on the mathematical foundations of geometry processing algorithms and their applications in computer graphics and related fields. In particular, he is working on generalized barycentric coordinates, subdivision of curves and surfaces, barycentric rational interpolation, and dynamic geometry processing. Professor Hormann has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers and is an associate editor of Computer Aided Geometric Design, Computers & Graphics, and the Dolomites Research Notes on Approximation.
Website or personal page: Prof. Kai Hormann
Course: Numerical Algorithms
Prof. Rolf Krause is chair of advanced scientific computing and the director of the institute of computational science in the faculty of informatics. From 2003 to 2009, he was professor at the University of Bonn. During that time he spent a sabbatical at UC San Diego (USA) and Columbia University New York (USA). In 2002 he was on a Postdoctoral research visit at the Courant Institute (NYU, New York). He holds a Diploma and a PhD (2000) in Mathematics from the FU Berlin (Germany). His research focuses on numerical simulation and mathematical modeling in scientific computing and computational sciences, in particular the development of theoretical well founded simulation methods, which show excellent performance also in real world applications. He was an associate editor of the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (SISC).
Website or personal page: Prof. Rolf Krause
Courses: Introduction to Partial Differential Equations, PDE Software Lab, Linear and Nonlinear Multiscale Solution Methods
Prof. Igor Pivkin received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mathematics from Novosibirsk State University, Russia, M.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University, USA. Before coming to Lugano, he was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. The research interests of Igor Pivkin lie in the area of multiscale/multiphysics modeling, corresponding numerical methods and parallel large-scale simulations of biological and physical systems. Specific areas include biophysics, cellular and molecular biomechanics, stochastic multiscale modeling, and coarse-grained molecular simulations.
Website or personal page: Prof. Igor Pivkin
Course: Advanced Discretization Methods
Professor Vittorio Limongelli took his Master Degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology at University of Napoli "Federico II" (Italy) in 2004 and took at the same university his PhD degree in 2007. During those years, his research was focused on standard computational methodologies (e. g. molecular docking, homology modeling) applied to the study of systems of biopharmaceutical interest. In 2007 he was visiting PhD first at University of Bologna (Italy) and then at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Here he did his PostDoc working in the field of enhanced sampling simulations used to study rare events in biosystems with a special focus on molecular binding processes. In December 2010 he got a permanent position as Researcher at the University of Naples "Federico II" (Italy) and in 2014 he got the qualification to function as Associate Professor in Italian Universities. In 2015 he moved back to Switzerland as Senior Assistant Professor at USI Lugano (Switzerland).
Website or personal page: Professor Limongelli
Course: Computational Biology and Drug Design, Practice of Simulation and Data Sciences
Prof. Michele Parrinello is currently Professor at ETH Zurich, and the Università della Svizzera Italiana Lugano, Switzerland. He is known for his many technical innovations in the field of atomistic simulations and for a wealth of interdisciplinary applications ranging from materials science to chemistry and biology. For his work he has been awarded the 2011 Prix Benoist and many others prizes and honorary degrees. He is a member of numerous academies and learned societies, including the National Academy of Science, the British Royal Society and the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He is the author of more than 600 papers and his work is highly cited.
Website or personal page: Prof. Michele Parrinello
Course: Molecular Dynamics
Prof. Evanthia Papadopoulou is an associate professor of computer science at the Università della Svizzera italiana. From 1996 to 2008 she was a research staff member at the IBM T.J. Watson research center, Yorktown Heights NY, USA. She had also been a Faculty member in the department of computer science at the Athens University of Economics and Business. She holds a BS degree in mathematics from University of Athens, an MS in computer science from University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University, USA, December 1995. Her research interests include the design and analysis of discrete algorithms, computational geometry and its applications, software and implementation of geometric algorithms, data structures, and algorithmic aspects of VLSI computer-aided design. For her work on "Voronoi diagram based VLSI Critical Area Analysis", she received the IBM outstanding innovation award, August 2006, and a rating of Technical Accomplishment for IBM Research, December 2006.
Website or personal page: Prof. Evanthia Papadopoulou
Course: Geometric Algorithms
Prof. Olaf Schenk is an associate professor at the Institute of Computational Science within the Department of Informatics at the Universita della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland. He graduated in Applied Mathematics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, and earned his PhD in 2001 from the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering of ETH Zurich and a venia legendi from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Basel in 2009. He conducts research in applied algorithms, computational science, and software tools for high-performance scientific computing. Olaf Schenk is a member of SIAM, and ACM, and a senior member of IEEE. He is a recipient of an IBM faculty award (2008) and two leadership computing awards from the U.S. Department of Energy (2012, 2013). He serves on the editorial board of the SIAM Journal for Scientific Computing and on the project leadership team of the Swiss Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing PASC. He has been elected as the Program Director for the SIAM Activity group on Supercomputing in the period 2016-2017.
Website or personal page: Prof. Olaf Schenk
Courses: High-Performance Computing, Software Atelier: Supercomputing and Simulations
Prof. Jürgen Schmidhuber is Director of the Swiss Institute for Artificial Intelligence IDSIA (since 1995), Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Lugano, Switzerland (since 2009), Head of Cognitive Robotics in the Faculty of TUM Computer Science at TU Munich, Germany (since 2004, as Professor Extraordinarius until April 2009), and Professor SUPSI, Switzerland (since 2003). He obtained his doctoral degree in computer science from TUM in 1991 and his Habilitation degree in 1993, after a postdoctoral stay at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. He helped to transform IDSIA into one of the world´s top ten AI labs (the smallest!), according to the ranking of Business Week Magazine. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers on topics such as machine learning, mathematically optimal universal AI, artificial curiosity and creativity, artificial recurrent neural networks, adaptive robotics, complexity theory, digital physics, theory of beauty, and the fine arts.
Website or personal page: Prof. Jürgen Schmidhuber
Course: Intelligent Systems
Prof. Patrick Gagliardini studied at the Polytechnical School in Zurich (ETHZ) where he graduated in Physics in 1998. In January 2003 he received a PhD from the Faculty of Economics of USI for a thesis in Econometrics. In 2003 he has been a visiting fellow at the Laboratoire de Finance-Assurance of CREST (Paris) with a SNSF research grant. Between 2004 and 2006 he held an assistant professor position at the Faculty of Economics of the University of St. Gallen. Since 2012 he is full professor of Econometrics at USI. His research interests focus on econometrics and financial econometrics. He has published research papers on topics such as large panel factor models, nonparametric estimation, the Generalized Method of Moments in asset pricing, time series analysis, and credit risk.
Website or personal page: Prof. Patrick Gagliardini
Course: Econometrics
Prof. Antonietta Mira is co-founder and co-director of the InterDisciplinary Institute of Data Science , IDIDS at USI where she also served as the Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Economics (2013-2015) and is a professor of statistics at the Institute of Finance at USI. She is a fellow of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), a visiting fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University. (2014 and 2016) and has been a visiting professor at Université Paris-Dauphine, University of Western Australia, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, and University of Bristol, UK. Her current research focuses on data science and methodological and computational statistics, both of which have a clear interdisciplinary scope across social science, finance, economics and industry. She is often invited to talk at international scientific conferences where she also organizes sessions on topics related to her research interests. She serves on the editorial board of high impact scientific journals such as Statistica Sinica (2005-8), Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (2006-8), Bayesian Analysis (2008-16) and as guest editor of special issues (2014-15-16). Antonietta holds a PhD in Computational Statistics (1998) and a Master¹s in Statistics (1996) from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, US. She also has a Doctorate in Methodological Statistics from the University of Trento (1995), Italy, and earned her Bachelor¹s in Economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Pavia, Italy.
Website or personal page: Prof. Antonietta Mira
Course: Statistics
Lecturers from Universita della Svizzera italiana
Dr. Spyros Angelopoulos is a Data / Network Scientist, working currently at the InterDisciplinary Institute of Data Science – IDIDS at USI. He holds a PhD in Information Systems and Management from Warwick Business School in the UK, a Diploma (Dipl-Eng, equivalent to MEng) in Production Engineering and Management, as well as an MSc in Management Engineering from the Technical University of Crete, Greece. His current research is on the emergence and evolution of social networks within online communities. His research interests include Social Networks, Big Data Analytics, and Cloud Computing.
Website or personal page: Dr. Spyros Angelopoulos
Course: Practice of Simulation and Data Sciences
Dr. Drosos Kourounis is a senior researcher at the Institute of Computational Science within the Faculty of Informatics at the Università della Svizzera italiana Lugano, Switzerland. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and earned his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Material Science and Engineering of University of Ioannina, Greece. He worked as a post doctoral fellow at the department of Energy Resources Engineering of Stanford University on optimization of compositional reservoir flow in porous media. His research now focuses on inverse problems that emerge in reservoir modeling, seismic imaging and smart grids and it involves the development of associated high-performance algorithms and software tools.
Website or personal page: Dr. Drosos Kourounis
Course: Software Atelier: Differential Equations
External Lecturers
External Distinguish Lecturers
Michael Saunders from Stanford holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Since 1987 he has been a Professor in Operations Research at Stanford specializing in numerical algorithms for sparse linear systems and large-scale constrained optimization. He is coauthor of the linear equation solvers SYMMLQ, MINRES, LSQR, LSMR, LUSOL, LUMOD, LSRN and the optimization solvers MINOS, LSSOL, NPSOL, QPOPT, SNOPT, SQOPT, PDCO. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (2007) and a SIAM Fellow (2013). In 2012 he won the SIAM Linear Algebra Prize and was elected to the Stanford University Invention Hall of Fame.
Website or personal page: Prof. Michael Saunders
Courses: Large-Scale Optimization (course will be offered on a bi-yearly basis)
Gerhard Wellein from University of Erlangen holds a PhD in Solid State Physics from the University of Bayreuth and is Professor for HPC at the Department for Computer Science at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He heads the HPC group at Erlangen Regional Computing Center (RRZE) and has more than ten years of experience in teaching HPC techniques to students and scientists from Computational Science and Engineering. His research interests include solving large sparse eigenvalue problems, novel prarallelization approaches, performance modeling and engineering, and architecture-specific optimization. Together with G. Hager and J. Treibig he is the recipient of the 2011 Informatics Europe Curriculum Best Practices Award in recognition of the outstanding educational initiative Teaching High Performance Computing to Scientists and Engineers: A Model-Based Approach.
Website or personal page: Prof. Gerhard Wellein
Courses: Node-Level Performance Engineering (course will be offered on a bi-yearly basis)
Georg Hager holds a PhD in Computational Physics from the University of Greifswald. He is a senior researcher in the HPC Services group at Erlangen Regional Computing Center (RRZE) at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Recent research includes architecture-specific optimization strategies for current microprocessors, performance engineering of scientific codes on chip and system levels, and special topics in shared memory and hybrid programming. His daily work encompasses all aspects of user support in High Performance Computing like tutorials and training, code parallelization, profiling and optimization, and the assessment of novel computer architectures and tools. His textbook "Introduction to High Performance Computing for Scientists and Engineers" is recommended or required reading in many HPC-related lectures and courses worldwide. In his teaching activities he puts a strong focus on performance modeling techniques that lead to a better understanding of the interaction of program code with the hardware.
Website or personal page: http://blogs.fau.de/hager/
Courses: Node-Level Performance Engineering (course will be offered on a bi-yearly basis)
Eldad Haber is a full professor in the Departments of Mathematics and Earth and Ocean Science, and the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Computational Geoscience at the University of British Columbia. He is an associate editor of the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. His primary research interest is scientific computing and its application to geophysical and medical imaging.
Website or personal page: http://www.math.ubc.ca/~haber/
Courses: Computational Data-based Imaging (course will be offered on a bi-yearly basis)
Sebastian Reich, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Reading
Sebastian Reich is a Professor of Numerical Analysis at the University of Potsdam (full time) and the University of Reading (part time). He also holds an honorary visiting professorship at Imperial College London. Reich is the author of over 100 journal articles and the co-author of Simulating Hamiltonian Dynamics (Cambridge, 2005), which has received more than 600 citations. His research areas cover numerical analysis and scientific computing with applications to classical mechanics, molecular dynamics, geophysical fluid dynamics, and data assimilation. In 2003 he received the Germund Dahlquist Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for his work on geometric integration methods.
Website or personal page: Prof. Sebastian Reich
Courses: Data Assimilation (offered in Fall 2017)
Stefano Serra Capizzano received the “Laurea” in Computer Science in 1990 at the Pisa U. and the PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1996 and Optimisation at the Milano U., both with “summa cum laude”. In 1996 he started as Researcher in Numerical Computing at the Department Of “Energetica” of Firenze U.; from 2000 to 2005 he was Associate Professor at the CFM Department of “Insubria” U. in Como. Since October 1st 2006 he is Full Professor. He serves as head of the Department of Physics and Mathematics (up to September 30th 2011) and of the Department of Science and high Technology from October 1st 2011, and since October 1st 2007 to May 26th 2008 he was the representative of the heads of Departments in the Senate of Insubria U. Since May 27th 2008 to July 21st 2012 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences - Como. His teaching activity in Italy and abroad includes courses at Master and PhD level. Moreover he was part of the Board for the E-learning project at the University level, he was in the Staff of the PhD Program of Milano (Computational Mathematics) and of Como - Insubria (Physics and Astrophysics). Since October 2007 he started a new PhD Program in Mathematics of Computing in the Insubria U.
Website or personal page: Prof. Stefano Serra Capizzano
Courses: Fast Solvers (offered in Spring 2017)
Application
The MCS is a highly-selective program designed for students with a strong background in mathematics, computer science, and applied statistics. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree in the field of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Statistics, or related disciplines granted by an accredited university. Applicants with a bachelor’s degree in the social sciences with adequate computational and analytical training will also be considered.
Deadlines
The application deadline for Master of Science (MSc) in Computational Science is June 30.
Deadline for candidates who need a VISA is April 30.
Applications sent after June 30, are considered if the programme applied for is not complete yet.
Notes:
In case of acceptance, your confirmation of participation in the program is requested within two weeks after the reception of the acceptance letter.
Non-Swiss citizens need a VISA for studying in Switzerland.
Non-EU citizens are advised to apply as early as possible to ensure sufficient amount of time for VISA application processing.
Application procedure
Online Application
To submit your application, please refer to the indications for filling out the online form available here: http://application.lu.usi.ch.
Paper Application
Applications to the Master programme can also be submitted with the the application form and required paper documents to the following address:
Università della Svizzera italiana
Faculty of Informatics
Admission Office
Via G. Buffi 13
CH-6900 Lugano
Switzerland
Please note that applications by email or by fax are not accepted.
Required documentation
The following pieces of documentation have to be sent in paper form:
- The completed application form (you may download it in pdf format)
- Photocopy of past diplomas (Bachelor, licentiate, four-year degree, maturity);
- Official transcript of results of university examinations;
- Certified translation of any diplomas written in a language other than Italian, German, French, English, or Spanish;
- Curriculum vitae (Resume)
- Personal letter of motivation drafted by the candidate;
- Official certification of proficiency in English;
- Photocopy of an identity card or other document;
- Photocopy of residence permit for foreign nationals already domiciled in Switzerland.
Photocopy of past degree certificates
Where a candidate has not fulfilled all the requirements for the Bachelor's degree, licentiate or other, copy of the diploma may be sent at a later stage, but in any case no later than the beginning of the matriculation period. If so, please indicate the expected date of the award and enclose an official document issued by the awarding institution confirming these terms.
Letter of motivation
Candidates are required to draft a letter (not more than one page) introducing themselves and explaining their particular interest and reasons for seeking admission to a given Master's degree.
Registration fee
The Lisbon convention regulates the recognition of university degrees between signatory countries and considerably simplifies the administration of admission procedures. For this reason, candidates whose previous degree studies were completed in countries outside this Convention (see list below) are invited to pay an application fee of SFr. 100 accounting for the higher administrative costs of processing more complex files. If the candidate is admitted, the fee will be deducted from the amount of the tuition fee for the first semester. The administrative fee is not refundable in other cases: if admission is not granted, or if the candidate decides to withdraw or fails to matriculate.
Method of payment
The amount of the registration fee may be credited to the following account:
Faculty of Informatics:
Swiss Post, PostFinance, 3030 Berna
CCP 65-153098-6
IBAN: CH82 0900 0000 6515 3098 6
SWIFT (BIC): POFICHBEXXX
List of Countries that have signed the Lisbon Convention
Albania | Germany | Norway |
Fees and Grants
Fees
Tuition fees for the Master's degrees amount to CHF 4,000 per semester (and 500 CHF for any additional semester after 2 years). Applicants whose official residence was in Switzerland (including Liechtenstein and Campione d'Italia) at the time of the final high school exam (Maturità) pay a reduced semester fee of CHF 2,000.
Tuition fees are payable at the beginning of each term, by the deadline indicated on the invoice; fee payment is an essential condition for matriculating or renewing one's enrolment.
Grants
For the academic year 2016/2017,
- the Foundation for the Lugano Faculties of the Università della Svizzera italiana will award a total of 60 one-off study grants of the amount of CHF 4'000 each. The merit-based grants are given to the students admitted to the first year of a USI Master programme starting in September 2016 (Call, Application form);
- the Università della Svizzera italiana organises a contest for 5 study grants for students admitted to the first year of the Masters in Informatics, Computational Science or Management & Informatics for the academic year 2016/2017 (Call, Application form);
- the Institute of Computational Science offers various student research positions. Interested students can contact Prof. Rolf Krause, Director of the Institute of Computational Science, or Prof. Olaf Schenk, Director of the Master Program.
Other study grants are available. For more details, please, visit the following web page: http://www.usi.ch/en/formazione-borse_studio.htm
Fellowships
Other computational and data science fellowships are available by ACM SIGHPC and Intel which are launching a new international program of graduate fellowships in computational and data science. Interested students can find more information on the fellowships, including a description of the fully online nomination process, at http://www.sighpc.org/fellowships.-
Contact
Contacts
For any detailed information concerning the contents of the study programmes, please contact the academic director of the Master Programme: Prof. Olaf Schenk, .
For further information concerning the curriculum and application, please contact the Dean's office of the Faculty of Informatics: and Prof. Olaf Schenk,
For any other information, please contact the Study Advisory Service:
News
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More than 50 participants at the 2016 FoMICS winter school on Uncertainty Quantification
FOMICS Winter School on Uncertainty Quantification More than 50 partecipants from 3 different continents joined our combined winter school and workshop on Uncertainty Quantification held from December 15th to 19th in Lugano, Switzerland. We wish to thank all of the attendees for...
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High resolution propagation of seismic waves in space and time
Researchers from ICS have developed a new algorithm for representing wave propagation in a medium. The parallel algorithm running on the ‘Piz Daint’ supercomputer is the first to efficiently simulate high-resolution details at various time steps simultaneously. This markedly accelerates...
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The spleen and its effect on red blood cells
The size and shape of red blood cells could be determined by the spleen, or so it would seem from simulations on ‘Piz Daint’. July 27, 2016 Based on a study done in the late 1960s, it was assumed that capillaries in the circulatory system determined the size of red blood cells. Red blood...
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Learning from the best
The goal of one of USI’s intensive courses taught by guest lecturers and experts: to use supercomputer hardware efficiently for simulations. The Institute of Computational Science sees guest lecturers as an opportunity to recruit the best in the world in their fields. Physicists Gerhard Wellein...
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Pioneering and productive – Master’s in Computational Science
The Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) has offered a Master’s degree at the Institute of Computational Science since 2014. The aim of the course is to teach the students comprehensive skills and knowhow on the methodology and tools of computational science. Although the programme is...
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“The students quickly become research and practically minded”
With the Master’s in Computational Science, the comparatively small Swiss Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano offers a degree programme that is unrivalled in Switzerland. In this interview, two mathematicians – founder and director of the institute Professor Rolf Krause, and...