Peter Poole
Peter Poole's research is focused on the physics of supercooled liquids, crystallization, and the glass transition. The conversion of liquid matter to the solid state is among the most fundamental transformations of condensed matter. At the same time, the predictive capabilities of available theories of both crystal and glass formation are poor, and Poole's research uses molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo computer simulations to test these theories and seek insights for improving them. Poole has a long-standing program of research studying the thermodynamics and relaxation behavior in deeply supercooled liquid water and amorphous ice. He also conducts research on crystal and glass formation in molten silica and in simpler atomic liquids such as the binary Lennard-Jones system. These simulations make heavy use of high-performance computing (HPC) resources based at StFX and across Canada. Poole has also been deeply involved in the creation of two of Canada's multi-university HPC consortia, SHARCNET and ACEnet.
