Data Science in the News

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WiDS Livermore conference attendees network, share research and absorb wisdom

March 27, 2024 - 
Co-sponsored by the DSI, LLNL on March 13 hosted the 7th annual Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference for data scientists, industry professionals, recent graduates and others interested in the field. As an independent satellite of the global WiDS conference celebrating International Women’s Day, the Livermore hybrid event was held to highlight the work and careers of LLNL and regional data...

Machine learning tool fills in the blanks for satellite light curves

Feb. 13, 2024 - 
When viewed from Earth, objects in space are seen at a specific brightness, called apparent magnitude. Over time, ground-based telescopes can track a specific object’s change in brightness. This time-dependent magnitude variation is known as an object’s light curve, and can allow astronomers to infer the object’s size, shape, material, location, and more. Monitoring the light curve of...

Register for WiDS Livermore on March 13

Feb. 8, 2024 - 
The annual Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference returns on Wednesday, March 13. This is the seventh year for WiDS Livermore, which is independently organized by LLNL to be part of the mission to increase participation of women in data science and to feature outstanding women doing outstanding work. The all-day WiDS Livermore event is free and will be presented in a hybrid format. Everyone...

Lab partners with new Space Force Lab

Nov. 14, 2023 - 
LLNL subject matter experts have been selected by the U.S. Space Force to help stand up its newest Tools, Applications, and Processing (TAP) laboratory dedicated to advancing military space domain awareness (SDA). The Livermore team attended the October 26 kickoff in Colorado Springs of the SDA TAP lab’s Project Apollo technology accelerator, designed with an open framework to support and...

LLNL’s Kailkhura elevated to IEEE senior member

Nov. 8, 2023 - 
IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization, has elevated LLNL research staff member Bhavya Kailkhura to the grade of senior member within the organization. IEEE has more than 427,000 members in more than 190 countries, including engineers, scientists and allied professionals in the electrical and computer sciences, engineering and related disciplines. Just 10% of IEEE’s...

UC Merced & UC Riverside tackle Data Science Challenge on ML-assisted heart modeling

Aug. 3, 2023 - 
For the first time, students from the University of California (UC) Merced and UC Riverside joined forces for the two-week Data Science Challenge (DSC) at LLNL, tackling a real-world problem in machine learning (ML)-assisted heart modeling. Held in the Livermore Valley Open Campus’s newly remodeled University of California Livermore Collaboration Center from July 10-21, the event brought...

Consulting service infuses Lab projects with data science expertise

June 5, 2023 - 
A key advantage of LLNL’s culture of multidisciplinary teamwork is that domain scientists don’t need to be experts in everything. Physicists, chemists, biologists, materials engineers, climate scientists, computer scientists, and other researchers regularly work alongside specialists in other fields to tackle challenging problems. The rise of Big Data across the Lab has led to a demand for...

Celebrating the DSI’s first five years

May 18, 2023 - 
View the LLNL Flickr album Data Science Institute Turns Five. Data science—a field combining technical disciplines such as computer science, statistics, mathematics, software development, domain science, and more—has become a crucial part of how LLNL carries out its mission. Since the DSI’s founding in 2018, the Lab has seen tremendous growth in its data science community and has invested...

Meet new DSI director Brian Giera

April 24, 2023 - 
In April 2023, Brian Giera was named the new director of the Data Science Institute (DSI). In this role, Giera, a materials and manufacturing researcher in LLNL’s Engineering Directorate, will oversee the DSI’s efforts to strengthen the Lab’s data science workforce pipeline, research directions, and community outreach. “The DSI is a thriving organization, so I am excited for the impact we...

Computing codes, simulations helped make ignition possible

April 6, 2023 - 
Harkening back to the genesis of LLNL’s inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program, codes have played an essential role in simulating the complex physical processes that take place in an ICF target and the facets of each experiment that must be nearly perfect. Many of these processes are too complicated, expensive, or even impossible to predict through experiments alone. With only a few...

First-ever hybrid Women in Data Science Livermore event celebrates achievements, supports women in the field

March 14, 2023 - 
Celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, LLNL women data scientists, Lab employees and other attendees interested in the field gathered at the Livermore Valley Open Campus for the annual Livermore Women in Data Science (WiDS) regional event held in conjunction with the global WiDS conference. Attendees met online and in-person for the forum, highlighting women in computing and the...

Register for WiDS Livermore on March 8

Jan. 31, 2023 - 
The annual Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference returns on Wednesday, March 8. LLNL will again host a regional event in conjunction with the worldwide conference. The all-day WiDS Livermore event is free and will be presented in a hybrid format. Everyone is welcome to attend. Along with plenty of food and networking opportunities, WiDS Livermore will include a livestream of the Stanford...

National Ignition Facility achieves fusion ignition

Dec. 13, 2022 - 
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today announced the achievement of fusion ignition at LLNL—a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power. On Dec. 5, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled...

Understanding the universe with applied statistics (VIDEO)

Nov. 17, 2022 - 
In a new video posted to the Lab’s YouTube channel, statistician Amanda Muyskens describes MuyGPs, her team’s innovative and computationally efficient Gaussian Process hyperparameter estimation method for large data. The method has been applied to space-based image classification and released for open-source use in the Python package MuyGPyS. MuyGPs will help astronomers and astrophysicists...

ESGF launches effort to upgrade climate projection data system

Oct. 5, 2022 - 
The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), a multi-agency initiative that gathers and distributes data for top-tier projections of the Earth’s climate, is preparing a series of upgrades that will make using the data easier and faster while improving how the information is curated. The federation, led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in collaboration with Argonne and...

Lab directors discuss LLNL’s past, present and future at ‘historic conversation’

Sept. 14, 2022 - 
On a historic occasion in the Livermore wine country, the nine living LLNL directors gathered on Sept. 8 to mark the Laboratory’s 70th anniversary, share stories and discuss their vision for the Lab in the coming years. Hosted by the nonprofit Livermore Lab Foundation, the panel brought past directors John Foster Jr., John Nuckolls, Bruce Tarter, George Miller, Parney Albright, and Bill...

Celebrating 10 years of hackathons

Sept. 7, 2022 - 
Hackathons are one of LLNL Computing’s most enduring and beloved traditions. Although some details have changed since the first hackathon, the premise remains the same: Participants have 24 hours to work on any project of their choosing, whether that’s learning a programming language, building a prototype, developing a new skill, or experimenting with a software framework. They are encouraged...

Panel discussion spotlights COVID-19 R&D

July 19, 2022 - 
The DSI’s career panel series continued on June 28 to highlight some of LLNL’s COVID-19 research projects. Three data scientists—Emilia Grzesiak, Derek Jones, and Priyadip Ray—joined moderator and data scientist Stewart He to talk about their work in drug screening, protein–drug compounds, antibody–antigen sequence analysis, and risk factor identification. He, who earned a PhD in Computer...

Introduction to deep learning for image classification workshop (VIDEO)

July 6, 2022 - 
In addition to its annual conference held every March, the global Women in Data Science (WiDS) organization hosts workshops and other activities year-round to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field. On June 29, LLNL’s Cindy Gonzales led a WiDS Workshop titled “Introduction to Deep Learning for Image Classification.” The abstract...

Kevin McLoughlin applies computational biology to complex problems

May 17, 2022 - 
Kevin McLoughlin has always been fascinated by the intersection of computing and biology. His LLNL career encompasses award-winning microbial detection technology, a COVID-19 antiviral drug design pipeline, and work with the ATOM consortium. The appeal for him in these projects lies at the intersection of computing and biology. “I love finding ways to visualize data that reveal relationships...