Empowering Future Scientists: FHI's Collaborative Efforts at ASESMA 2025 in Ghana
Researcher from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) have recently contributed to the 8th African School on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications (ASESMA), held from June 9th to 20th, 2025, at the University of Ghana.
ASESMA is a biennial initiative, organized by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste and co-sponsored, among others, by the FHI. Since almost two decades, this recurring summer school aims at introducing young and talented African researchers to quantum-mechanical electronic-structure theory and atomistic simulation methods. This year’s edition was attended by 51 undergraduate and graduate participants from 17 African countries, selected from over 170 applications, and featured lecturers from four continents.
Among those lecturers, two researchers from the Theory Department of the FHI, Christoph Dähn and Dr. Christian Carbogno, played a role in this year’s event by delivering several lectures and hands-on sessions, both for inexperienced and for advanced students. The main focus of these presentations laid on the theory and tools underlying the vibrational dynamics in solids, including lattice dynamics, anharmonicity, as well as phonon-phonon and electron-phonon coupling. To provide tangible examples for such first-principles workflows, the FHI-aims electronic-structure code and the FHI-vibes lattice dynamics software packages were used in the hands-on tutorials. Here, the students learned the practical skills for computationally predicting phonon properties, lattice expansion, and the temperature-dependence of electronic band gaps.
“The event was marked by an impressively friendly and engaged atmosphere, with students extremely eager to learn new skills and to apply them to their own research.” says Christoph Dähn. The success of this longstanding program is further substantiated by the presence of many lecturers and tutors that were participants in earlier ASESMA editions. Today, they hold prestigious academic positions in Africa and abroad, also through the skills and networks acquired through ASESMA.
We extend our gratitude to the ASESMA community and the supporting institutions, including the University of Ghana, the ICTP, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics IUPAP, and others, for making this successful event possible. The Fritz Haber Institute is honored to be part of this global effort to empower the next generation of scientists in Africa and beyond.
