Lecturer, University of Bath

Dr Martin Rey is a computational astrophysicist driven by a fascination with how galaxies come to be. His research uses large-scale cosmological simulations to trace the complex interplay of gas, stars, and dark matter across billions of years of cosmic time. By building and running these digital universes, Martin aims to uncover the physical processes that shape galaxies and provide theoretical insight for observations from instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope. 

His work sits at the interface between astrophysics and high-performance computing (HPC). He leads simulation campaigns on national and European supercomputers, routinely involving hundreds of millions of CPU hours. These simulations capture the complex, multi-scale nature of galaxy evolution—combining fluid dynamics, gravity, magnetic fields, and radiative transfer across billions of resolution elements—and demand ever more sophisticated computational methods. 

Together with colleagues, Martin is exploring new acceleration strategies for galaxy formation simulations in the exascale era, from rethinking our CPU implementations to leveraging emerging technologies such as GPUs. This effort highlights the importance of shared expertise across disciplines tackling similar computational challenges. The CoSeC Fellowship will enable Martin to collaborate with experts in other computational sciences, exchange strategies for scaling complex physics on accelerators, and share the lessons learned from developing a multi-physics, multi-platform astrophysical code. 

Interesting fact: Martin likes to take sailboats across oceans and spend days far away from land and computers.