SKACH Winter Meeting 2026

26 Jan 2026, 09:00 → 27 Jan 2026, 18:00 Europe/Zurich

Ground Floor E4 (CSCS LCA main Building )

Carolyn Crichton, Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL), Joanna Jermini-Howard

We are pleased to invite you to participate to the SKACH Winter Meeting hosted by our collaborators at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). This event will focus on consortium-wide updates, and updates from the five SKACH programs: Comms & Outreach, Instrumentation, Computing Platforms & Infrastructure, Data Science & Simulations and Science (AstroSignals).

SKACH is primarily funded by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), and is responsible for managing the Swiss contribution to the SKAO. SKACH also leverages funding from external grants such as AstroSignals SINERGIA, SNF Bilateral, PASC, InnoSuisse, and Horizon Europe.

This endeavor is lead by a strong contingent of Swiss institutions; including, Universität Basel (UniBas), Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW), Universität Zürich (UZH), Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW), Université de Genève (UniGE), Haute École spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale (HES-SO) and the Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS).

Monday, 26 January

09:30 → 10:00 Registration and Coffee

10:00 → 11:00 Monday Morning: Opening Session

Convener: Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL)

10:00 Welcome to the SKACH Winter Meeting & Welcome to CSCS

Speakers: Pablo Fernandez (ETH Zurich / CSCS), Victor Holanda (ETHZ/CSCS)

2026WM_Intro_JPK.pdf

CSCS update and logistics.pdf

10:20 SKACH 2025 in Review and 2026 Look Forward

Speaker: Carolyn Crichton (EPFL)

Carolyn Crichton_SKACH Winter Meeting 2026.pdf

10:40 SKACH Communications Update

Speaker: Tanya Petersen (EPFL)

SKACH Communications Winter Meeting Lugano January 2026.pptx

11:00 → 12:00 Monday Morning: Data Science & Imaging

Convener: Emma Tolley (EPFL)

11:00 Aligning Astrophysical Images with Complementary Data Modalities

Speaker: Erica Lastufka (University of Geneva)

SKACH_Winter26_Lastufka.pdf

11:20 Classification of diffuse radio emission from LoTSSDR2

Speaker: Markus Bredberg (EPFL)

SKACHw26_pdf_ver.pdf

11:40 Progress Report: TABASCAL improvements in terms of speed, accuracy and extensibility

Speaker: Dr Chris Finlay (EPFL)

TABASCAL_SKACH_Update.pptx

12:00 → 13:00 Lunch (Group picture)

13:00 → 15:00 Monday Afternoon: Data Science & Simulations

Convener: Darren Reed (University of Zurich)

13:00 Deep Learning Approaches for Solving Chemistry in Radiative Transfer Simulations

Speaker: Dr Philipp Denzel (Centre for Artificial Intelligence, ZHAW)

phdenzel_skach_winter_meeting_260126.pdf

13:20 ART4SKA - Accelerated Radiative Transfer Simulations for the Square Kilometre Array

Speaker: Dr Tommaso Boschi (ETH Zurich)

ARTS4SKA_SKACH_WinterMeeting_260126.pdf

13:40 Solving the Cosmological Vlasov–Poisson Equations with Physics-Informed Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Speaker: Nicolas Cerardi (EPFL, Swizerland)

Simulating Cold Dark Matter with Physics-Informed Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

14:00 Evaluating Learning-Based Compression Techniques for Radio Interferometric Visibilities Data

Speaker: Xiaoran Chen (Swiss Data Science Center)

skach_winter_workshop.pdf

14:20 Implicit inference of the reionization history with higher-order statistics of the 21-cm signal

Speaker: Nicolas Cerardi (EPFL, Swizerland)

Implicit inference of the reionization history with higher-order statistics of the 21-cm signal

14:40 PRISME-21 : Public Reference for Interferometric Simulations for Foreground Mitigation in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21-cm signal

Speaker: Emmanuel de Salis (HE-Arc Ingénierie, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland)

DE_SALIS-PRISM21.pdf

15:00 → 15:30 Coffee Break

15:30 → 16:45 Monday Afternoon: Data Science & Simulations (continued)

Convener: Darren Reed (University of Zurich)

15:30 Physics Informed Machine Learning for Wave Dark Matter Simulations

Speaker: Ashutosh Kumar Mishra (EPFL)

SKACH_2026.pdf

15:50 Reconstructing the cosmological distribution of dark matter from HI

Speaker: Robert Feldmann (University of Zurich)

Robert_Feldmann_SKACH_2026.pdf

16:10 VIRUP updates

Speaker: Florian Cabot (EPFL)

FlorianCabot_VIRUPUpdates.pdf

16:25 Karabo: Overview, Access, and Transition to SDP Configuration

Speakers: Andreas Wassmer (FHNW), Massimo De Santis (HES-SO // Haute Ecole Arc Ingénierie, University of Applied Sciences & Arts Western Switzerland, Saint-Imier, Switzerland)

Update Karabo Pipeline (3).pptx

16:45 → 16:50 Monday Afternoon: Closing - Day 1

17:15 → 19:00 Apero

Tuesday, 27 January

08:30 → 09:30 Tuesday Morning: SKACH Science

Convener: Dr Ajith Sampath (University of Geneva)

08:30 Astrophysics of Galaxies: (My) Highlights from the New SKA Science Book

Speaker: Dr Mark Sargent (EPFL LASTRO)

presMTSargent_270126.pdf

08:50 MeerKAt observations of Saraswti core region

Speaker: Robert Kincaid (EPFL)

SKA days Lugano 2026.pdf

SKA days Lugano 2026.pptx

09:10 HIRAX - Overview, Current status, and Swiss involvement

Speaker: Dr Ajith Sampath (University of Geneva)

Ajith_HIRAX_googleslidelink

HIRAX_Ajith_SKACHWinter2026_.pptx

09:30 → 10:00 Coffee Break

10:00 → 11:00 Tuesday Morning: SKAO Regional Centers (SRCs)

Convener: André Csillaghy (University of Applied Sciences North Western Switzerland (FHNW))

10:00 SRCNet Development and Science Delivery Update

Speakers: Chin-Shin Chang (University of Geneva), Rohini Joshi (FHNW)

SKACH Winter meeting 2026 SRCNet development update RJ.pdf

10:20 The SKA Science Preparation: Project Scientist Update

Speaker: Dr Chin-Shin Chang (University of Geneva)

20260126_SKACH_Lugano.pdf

10:40 SRCNet/CHSRC deployment and demo

Speakers: Carolina Lindqvist (EPFL), Lukas Gehrig (FHNW), Pablo Llopis Sanmillan (EPFL), Pascal Herzog

SRCNet - CHSRC deployment and demo (SKACH winter meeting).pdf

11:00 → 12:00 Tuesday Morning: HPC Science Platforms

Convener: Victor Holanda (ETHZ/CSCS)

11:00 When to Rebalance? Cost–Benefit Analysis of Domain Decomposition in SPH-EXA

Speaker: Dr Osman Seckin Simsek (University of Basel)

2026-01-27-SKACH-SPH-EXA-final.pptx

11:20 JupyterHub with FirecRESTSpawner at CSCS

Speaker: Rafael Sarmiento (ETH Zürich / CSCS)

jupyterhub-at-cscs-skach2026.pdf

11:40 FirecREST, an API for HPC and AI workflows

Speaker: Mr Elia Palme (ETH Zurich/CSCS)

FirecREST-SKACH.pdf

12:00 → 12:05 Tuesday Morning: Closing - Day 2

12:05 → 13:05 Lunch

13:05 → 14:05 SKACH Board Meeting (upon invitation only)

13:05 → 14:05 Tour of CSCS (open to participants - please register at welcome desk)

14:30 → 17:30 CSCS/SRCNet Technical Discussion (upon invitation only)