From September 1st to 11th, our center is hosting guests from Moscow who have arrived to learn the basics of using the ToposPro software package and quantum mechanical calculations of the structure and properties of materials. The internship is being conducted by master’s students from the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University. Graduate and undergraduate students from Samara University have also joined the training as students.The internship program is quite intensive and includes mastering ToposPro to an advanced level, an overview of crystal chemistry and DFT calculation methods used and developed by our staff. Interns will participate in both theoretical lectures and practical lab work using the ToposPro manual, as well as a computational workshop on the SCTMS supercomputer under the supervision of researchers, faculty, graduate students, and students from Samara Polytechnic University. The training began with a lecture session by the creators of ToposPro: Professor Vladislav Blatov, Director of the SCTMS and the Head of the Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at Samara Polytechnic University, and Professor Alexander Shevchenko.
Professor V. Blatov discussed the history of ToposPro schools, which began in 2008, and spoke about international colleagues who have mastered and are using ToposPro in their research. Professor Vladislav Blatov’s lecture topic was “Introduction to Topological Crystal Chemical Analysis.” Professor A. Shevchenko focused on machine learning methods and their application to crystallographic data analysis.
The practical session on mastering ToposPro was led by Dr. Inna Medrish, and Dr. Maxim Karasev, of the Crystal Chemistry and Crystal Design Laboratory. Interns will master the ToposPro manual module by module, and individual assignments will focus on applying analytical methods to their own research objects.
During the second week of the internship, under the guidance of Dr. Artem Kabanov, a leading researcher at the Laboratory of Mathematical Modeling of Materials, students will learn to use modern atomistic modeling programs to study crystal stability, evaluate their elastic and electronic properties, and work with disordered compounds.
“You could say I came with a specific goal,” shares Maria Shevchukova. “My thesis idea is related to topological analysis and the creation of a database of topological characteristics of mineral descriptors. Therefore, I hope to take some steps toward writing my thesis during the internship and get to know Prof. Vladislav Blatov and his scientific methods.”
“We’ve been going on internships since our first year,” say MSU master’s students Ekaterina Kotelevskaya and Sofia Kortunkova. “The first two years were general geological, and from our third year on, we were sent to various scientific centers across the country. We were in Yekaterinburg for laboratory research, and now we’re in Samara. We visited the Tunguska Nature Reserve in the Urals and Crimea.”
“This is the second time we’ve organized such targeted training at the request of Moscow State University,” comments Professor V.A. Blatov. “These are the latest interns from the Geological Faculty—two years ago, a group of master’s students with their supervisor came. Events like these demonstrate the interest in our developments on the part of leading Russian scientific centers and open avenues for collaboration, to which we are always open.”