News & Research Highlights

The Software & AI Services division has made the Veyra Atlas materials-property prediction model available to external clients via a documented REST API. Atlas, which was trained on 14 years of characterization data from the Institute's core facilities, predicts thermal conductivity, elastic moduli, and optical bandgap for amorphous and crystalline compounds with a reported mean absolute error of 4.7% against experimental reference sets.

External access is offered under a tiered subscription structure. Academic partners may apply for a research-use licence at no cost, subject to publication-sharing terms. Commercial clients access the API through the Software & AI Services rate schedule. Trial access requests can be submitted to atlas@veyra.example. Lead developer Dr. Naila Ravelo will present the API capabilities at the June all-hands seminar and at the upcoming QPS/CDS joint workshop in September.

Phase two of the Meridian High-Performance Computing Cluster expansion is complete, bringing total capacity to 2,400 GPU nodes arranged across eight compute racks in Building D. The expansion, funded jointly by a capital equipment grant from the Veyra endowment and a co-investment from three industry partners, more than doubles the cluster's previous peak throughput.

Priority allocation for the expanded capacity is as follows: 40% reserved for the Institute's funded research groups, 30% for Software & AI Services client projects, 20% for Graduate School and Veyra Fellows use, and 10% available to external academic users through the standard booking system. Full documentation on the new node specifications, job submission procedures, and storage quotas is available from the Meridian facility page.

Prof. Hana Okoro, lead of the Computational Neuroscience Group, has been awarded a 4.2 million credit multi-year research grant from the fictitious Caldwell Foundation for Brain Science (CFBS) to pursue a programme of work on high-dimensional neural population decoding in motor cortex. The award will support two new postdoctoral positions and fund access to 64-channel multi-electrode arrays for the group's implanted-recording experiments.

The funded programme, titled "Geometry of Population Codes During Motor Preparation," will run from September 2025 through August 2029 and includes a collaboration with the Human-Centred Computing Group on real-time decoding software. Prof. Okoro will present the project's aims at the Institute's June research seminar.

The deadline for the 2025 Veyra Summer School closed with 341 applications received across 67 countries — a 28% increase on last year and the largest applicant pool in the program's eleven-year history. The program accepts 36 participants; the selection panel convenes in the first two weeks of April, with notifications issued by 30 April.

This year's summer school runs from 7 to 25 July on the Calder Mesa Campus. Week one introduces the Institute's five divisions and core facilities; week two focuses on computational and data methods; week three is devoted to a group research sprint. Twelve full-fee bursaries are available and have been awarded as part of the standard admissions process.

The Integrated Photonics Lab, led by Dr. Sora Veld, has published a paper in Photonic Systems Letters (DOI: VEYRA-10.7182/psl.2025.0044) reporting propagation losses below 0.3 dB/cm for silicon-nitride waveguides fabricated in the Cleanroom & Nanofabrication Facility. The result — achieved using a modified PECVD deposition protocol developed in-house — represents a 40% reduction in loss compared with the group's previous best recorded figures.

The paper was co-authored with two postdoctoral researchers from the Nonlinear Optics Lab. The nanofabrication protocol used in the work is now available to external users through the Scientific & Analytical Services process-development service.

The Patent & IP Services division has recorded its 200th active client engagement of the calendar year, a milestone it reached seven months into 2024. The majority of engagements are in prior-art and freedom-to-operate searches, followed by patent drafting support and technology licensing. The division now operates with a team of six specialist analysts and two external patent attorneys on retainer.

The division's brochure has been updated to reflect the new Veyra IP portfolio evaluation service, launched in September 2024, which provides mid-sized technology companies with a structured two-week review of their existing patent estate. Download the updated Patent & IP Services brochure for full service descriptions and indicative pricing.

Prof. Aiko Romero, lead of the Atmospheric Dynamics Group, has been elected a Fellow of the International Meteorological Society (IMS) in recognition of her contributions to the understanding of mid-latitude storm-track variability under climate forcing. The Fellowship is awarded annually to a maximum of twelve scientists worldwide; election requires nomination by two existing Fellows and approval by the IMS Scientific Committee.

Prof. Romero will deliver an IMS Fellow Lecture in the spring of 2025. Her group's ongoing work on blocking events and jet-stream persistence is supported by a three-year grant from the Atmospheric Dynamics Group fund and a collaboration with the Climate Informatics Group led by Dr. Selma Underhill.

The Veyra Annual Report 2025 is now available for download. The report covers the 2024 financial year, summarising research outputs (341 publications across five divisions), service revenues (38.4 million cr from commercial activities), Graduate School enrolment (210 students, 90 fellows), and capital expenditure including the Meridian cluster phase-two expansion and the installation of a third cryo-TEM bay in the Advanced Microscopy Centre.

The report includes a message from Director Margarethe Valdez, divisional summaries, and a financial overview prepared by the Finance and Audit Committee. The full document runs to 84 pages and is available as a PDF from the downloads page.

The Catalysis & Green Chemistry Lab, led by Dr. Yael Brenner, has published findings in Applied Catalysis Communications (DOI: VEYRA-10.3341/acc.2024.0118) describing a heterogeneous catalyst that sustains hydrogen generation from formic acid at 94% Faradaic efficiency over 800 continuous operating hours without measurable deactivation. The catalyst — a palladium-indium alloy on a mesoporous silica support — was synthesised in the Cleanroom & Nanofabrication Facility and characterised using the Spectroscopy & Analytical Core's HRMS and XRD instruments.

The result is being evaluated for technology licensing through the Patent & IP Services division, which has filed a provisional patent application (VEYRA-PAT-2024-0331) on the synthesis method.