Frank Löffler
My strong background in software design and development stems from
years of immersion in cutting-edge, international software development
teams. This primarily includes scientific software development, often
assessing and using the latest available technology. Thus, I contribute
to activitis that highlight software development and its role
especially in science, e.g., WSSSPE, Force11, and I
am one of the main founders of the German chapter of the RSE community:
de-RSE.
One of my current scientific interests is the behavior of
matter in strongly curved environments, where both the dynamics
of nuclear matter as well as general relativity are important.
A lot of my current research involves simulations of neutron stars, either as
single neutron stars that may undergo instabilities, or together with a
companion that is either a black hole or another neutron star.
Research in this direction is
particularly timely and urgent, as gravitational waves from neutron star
binaries are expected to be observed in the near future,
potentially making a direct connection between such systems
and short gamma-ray bursts.
I led research projects in numerical relativity, relativistic astrophysics
and community software engineering. I also consulted LSU faculty and staff in
questions of technology and software development. This included efficient
use of current IT infrastructure, as well as strategic planning with future
trends in mind. To follow and understand the ever-increasing influence of
digital technologies on society, future job markets and teaching methods is
going to be even more than in the past essential for success. Communicating
this to the next generation is one of my motivations to offer lectures at
elementary schools, to train and mentor robotics teams at local schools, and
to teach regular college courses.
News
Recent Publications
- Roberto De Pietri,
Alessandra Feo, José A. Font, Frank Löffler, Francesco Maione, Michele
Pasquali, and Nikolaos Stergioulas.
Convective excitation of inertial modes in binary neutron star mergers.
submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett., 2018.
(arXiv:1802.03288).
- Francesco Maione, Roberto
De Pietri, Alessandra Feo, and Frank Löffler.
Spectral analysis
of gravitational waves from binary neutron star merger remnants.
Phys. Rev. D, 96:063011, Sep 2017.
(arXiv:1707.03368).
(doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.96.063011)
- Frank Löffler, Daniel S.
Katz, Lucas A. Wilson, Sandra Gesing, Damon McDougall, Jeffrey Carver, and
Steven R. Brandt.
Research software training initiative: Identifying and addressing challenges in
scientific software development.
Response to the ``NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Request for Information on
Future Needs for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Support Science and
Engineering Research (NSF CI 2030)'', 2017.
(https://www.nsf.gov/cise/oac/ci2030/pdf/RFI-Loffler-250.pdf).
- Daniel S. Katz, Robert Haines,
Kathryn Huff, Frank Löffler, Marlon Pierce, Michael Heroux, Kyle Niemeyer,
Sandra Gesing, Jeffrey Carver, and Greg Wilson.
Sustaining software as a key element of cyberinfrastructure.
Response to the ``NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Request for Information on
Future Needs for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Support Science and
Engineering Research (NSF CI 2030)'', 2017.
(https://www.nsf.gov/cise/oac/ci2030/pdf/RFI-Katz-209.pdf).
- Fernando Alegre, Frank Löffler,
Juana Moreno, Brenda C. Nixon, and Le Yan.
A Summer School on parallel computing for science and enineering majors.
submitted to EduPar-17, 2017.
