Welcome summer! Carlos Cocha

Hi everyone!

My name is Carlos Cocha and I am finishing my second semester at the University of Padova in Italy as part of my Erasmus Mundus Master Degree in Nuclear Physics.  I am from Ecuador and I lived there until I got my bachelor’s degree in Physics last year.

To make it short, during my studies I decided to work with my two great loves science and computing. It’s incredible how nowadays both are used in the biggest scientific discoveries through analyses or simulations that require huge computing power. Thus, programming is an essential tool for physicists due to all the theories and all the craziest hypothesize that someone can imagine could be simulated through powerful supercomputers.  It makes me feel that there are no limits if we know how to manage these tools. For that reason, I decided to apply to the PRACE Summer of HPC 2021 and be able to learn about High Performance Computing.

With this background, now you can imagine how excited I got when I received the email I was selected to participate in the program. I began to jump giddy with delight because the number of students was large and the chance to be selected was reduced. I was so excited that all my memories since my father bought me my first desktop computer came out. It’s funny how the Windows XP operating system was enough to catch my heart and to discover a new kind of happiness together with a starting passion for computing.

So here I am, telling you about me in this blog after being selected to be a part of the “High Throughput HEP Data Processing at HPC” project organized by CERN, Switzerland. This project was my first choice and the closest one to my previous experiences. As a physicist, it is going to be an invaluable experience.

Finally, I would like to thank SoHPC organizers for giving me this amazing opportunity and to everyone who read my post. I hope you enjoyed it and I would like to see you tracking my future posts with new updates about my project. The program has just begun and there is so much to tell you.

I would like to know how do you use computing in your daily activities/research? Feel free to comment.