Peter V. Coveney is currently (April 2005) Professor in Physical Chemistry and Director, Centre for Computational Science (CCS) at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (UCL).

Coveney is probably best known to the general public for his two popularizations in science:

1. PV Coveney and RR Highfield, The Arrow of Time (WH Allen, London, 1990; Ballantine, New York, 1991).
2. PV Coveney and RR Highfield, Frontiers of Complexity (Fawcett, New York, 1995; Faber and Faber, London, 1995).

These books convey his research interests. He has been associated with chemists, physicists, mathematicians, materials scientists, engineers, and computer scientists of Schlumberger Cambridge Research, Molecular Simulations Inc. (MSI) and Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), often using their computation facilities, as well as those of CSAR UK National Supercomputing Facility at Manchester, and the University of Cambridge High Performance Computing Facility.

The CCS is using a highly scalable molecular dynamics

Molecular dynamics

Molecular dynamics is a computer simulation of physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a period of time, giving a view of the motion of the atoms...

 code

Code

A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....

: Large Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator. The code was originally developed as part of a US-based collaboration involving Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...

, Du Pont, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Bristol-Myers Squibb , often referred to as BMS, is a pharmaceutical company, headquartered in New York City. The company was formed in 1989, following the merger of its predecessors Bristol-Myers and the Squibb Corporation...

 and Cray Research. CCS is collaborating with Dr. C. Laughton's group at the University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

 on applications of this code to large scale studies of DNA dynamics.

Coveney's specialities include

• Modelling of complex nonlinear physicochemical processes
  • Molecular-scale computational chemistry
    Computational chemistry
    Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
    
    
  • Mesoscale modelling and simulation
    Simulation
    Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
    
    
  • Chemical kinetics
    Chemical kinetics
    Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the study of rates of chemical processes. Chemical kinetics includes investigations of how different experimental conditions can influence the speed of a chemical reaction and yield information about the reaction's mechanism and transition...
    
     and Statistical mechanics
    Statistical mechanics
    Statistical mechanics or statistical thermodynamicsThe terms statistical mechanics and statistical thermodynamics are used interchangeably...
    
    of these processes

External links

• Home page at UCL