UCy professor named to European post

University of Cyprus professor Constantia Alexandrou received an international honorary distinction when she became the first Cypriot chairwoman of the European Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE).

The professor of the department of physics of the University of Cyprus, has been unanimously elected as the new chair of PRACE’s council, for a two-year term of office.

Commenting on her election, Dr Alexandrou said “I am committed to working with all PRACE members to continue the success of the European Partnership to promote computational science and engineering across Europe.”

“We will work closely with the European EuroHPC to implement the European High Performance Computing design, providing European scientists in academia and industry with the HPC resources, training and support they need to carry out cutting-edge research and innovation,” the professor added.

Her election is an honourable distinction, both for her and for the University of Cyprus, the university said.

“It is the first time that the Chair of PRACE has been elected from our country, having had a brilliant scientific career,” UCy said.

Dr Constantia Alexandrou was the visionary and founder of the Computational Science and Technology Research Centre (CaSToRC) which has been PRACE’s partner for Cyprus since 2010. She has served as Director of CaSToRC and Cyprus Representative to PRACE since 2008.

Comprising 25 EU member states, the EU co-funded Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) provides higher-end Supercomputing Services (HPC services) to science and industry, leveraging the largest national supercomputing systems in Europe. PRACE is a European supercomputing ecosystem and contributes to research and technological development in all scientific disciplines, providing world-class computing and data