Data Science in the News

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Laser-driven ion acceleration with deep learning

May 25, 2021 - 
While advances in machine learning over the past decade have made significant impacts in applications such as image classification, natural language processing and pattern recognition, scientific endeavors have only just begun to leverage this technology. This is most notable in processing large quantities of data from experiments. Research conducted at LLNL is the first to apply neural...

The data-driven future of extreme physics

May 19, 2021 - 
By applying modern machine learning and data science methods to “extreme” plasma physics, researchers can gain insight into our universe and find clues about creating a limitless amount of energy. In a recent perspective published in Nature, LLNL scientists and international collaborators outline key challenges and future directions in using machine learning and other data-driven techniques...

DSI virtual seminar series debuts on YouTube

May 19, 2021 - 
Since launching in 2018, the DSI has hosted more than three dozen speakers in its seminar series. These events invite researchers from academia, industry, and other institutions to discuss their work for an hour to an LLNL audience. In 2020, the series transitioned to a virtual format, and a video playlist of recently recorded seminars is available on the Livermore Lab Events YouTube channel...

Lab offers forum on machine learning for industry

April 22, 2021 - 
LLNL is looking for participants and attendees from industry, research institutions and academia for the first-ever Machine Learning for Industry Forum (ML4I), a three-day virtual event starting Aug. 10. The event is sponsored by LLNL’s High Performance Computing Innovation Center and the Data Science Institute. The deadline for submitting presentations or industry use cases is June 30. The...

Virtual seminar series explores data-driven physical simulations

April 6, 2021 - 
The rapidly growing fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have become cornerstones of LLNL’s data science research activities. The Lab’s scientific community regularly publishes advancements in both AI/ML applications and theory, contributing to international discourse on the possibilities of these compelling technologies. The large volume of AI/ML scientific...

COVID-19 HPC Consortium reflects on past year

April 1, 2021 - 
COVID-19 HPC Consortium scientists and stakeholders met virtually on March 23 to mark the consortium’s one-year anniversary, discussing the progress of research projects and the need to pursue a broader organization to mobilize supercomputing access for future crises. The White House announced the launch of the public-private consortium, which provides COVID-19 researchers with free access to...

ATOM Consortium welcomes 3 DOE national labs to accelerate drug discovery

March 29, 2021 - 
The Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine (ATOM) consortium, of which LLNL is part, announced the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne, Brookhaven and Oak Ridge national laboratories are joining the consortium to further develop ATOM’s AI-driven drug discovery platform. The public-private ATOM consortium aims to transform drug discovery from a slow, sequential and high-risk...

Lab event encourages growth of women in data science

March 17, 2021 - 
Coinciding with International Women’s Day on March 8, LLNL’s 4th Women in Data Science (WiDS) regional event brought women together to discuss successes, opportunities and challenges of being female in a mostly male field. The Lab’s first-ever virtual WiDS gathering attracted dozens of LLNL data scientists as well as some from outside the Lab, and featured speakers, a career panel and...

'Self-trained' deep learning to improve disease diagnosis

March 4, 2021 - 
New work by computer scientists at LLNL and IBM Research on deep learning models to accurately diagnose diseases from X-ray images with less labeled data won the Best Paper award for Computer-Aided Diagnosis at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference on February 19. The technique, which includes novel regularization and “self-training” strategies, addresses some well-known challenges in the...

LLNL physicist wins Young Former Student award

Dec. 16, 2020 - 
Texas A&M University’s Department of Nuclear Engineering on December 10 announced it has honored LLNL physicist Kelli Humbird with its 2020-21 Young Former Student award for her work at LLNL in combining machine learning with inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. Humbird graduated from Texas A&M with a PhD in nuclear engineering in 2019. Since joining the Laboratory as an intern in 2016...

Model for COVID-19 drug discovery a Gordon Bell finalist

Nov. 17, 2020 - 
A machine learning model developed by a team of LLNL scientists to aid in COVID-19 drug discovery efforts is a finalist for the Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research. Using Sierra, the world’s third fastest supercomputer, LLNL scientists produced a more accurate and efficient generative model to enable COVID-19 researchers to produce novel compounds...

DOE announces five new energy projects at LLNL

Nov. 13, 2020 - 
The DOE today announced two rounds of awards for the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation Program HPC4EI), including five projects at LLNL. HPC4EI connects industry with the computational resources and expertise of the DOE national laboratories to solve challenges in manufacturing, accelerate discovery and adoption of new materials and improve energy efficiency. The awards were...

From intern to mentor, Nisha Mulakken builds a career in bioinformatics

Nov. 3, 2020 - 
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a wave of new research and development at the Lab, and Nisha Mulakken is very busy. The biostatistician has enhanced the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA) system with detection capability for all variants of SARS-CoV-2. The technology detects a broad range of organisms—viruses, bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and fungi—and has demonstrated...

Machine learning speeds up and enhances physics calculations

Oct. 1, 2020 - 
Interpreting data from NIF’s cutting-edge high energy density science experiments relies on physics calculations that are so complex they can challenge LLNL supercomputers, which stand among the best in the world. A collaboration between LLNL and French researchers found a novel way to incorporate machine learning and neural networks to significantly speed up inertial confinement fusion...

The internship that launched a machine-learning target revolution

Oct. 1, 2020 - 
Kelli Humbird came to LLNL as a student intern and became a teacher of new data science techniques. In this profile, she describes her experiences and the path that led to her research inertial confinement fusion. Read more at the National Ignition Facility.

Using models, 3D printing to study common heart defect

Aug. 10, 2020 - 
One of the most common congenital heart defects, coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a narrowing of the main artery transporting blood from the heart to the rest of the body. It affects more than 1,600 newborns each year in the United States, and can lead to health issues such as hypertension, premature coronary artery disease, aneurysms, stroke and cardiac failure. To better understand risk...

Advancing healthcare with data science (VIDEO)

Aug. 3, 2020 - 
This video provides an overview of projects in which data scientists work with domain scientists to address major challenges in healthcare. To help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are developing computer models to search for potential antibody and antiviral drug treatments, sharing a data portal with scientists and the general public, and analyzing drug compounds via a novel text...

Modeling neuronal cultures on 'brain-on-a-chip' devices

June 12, 2020 - 
For the past several years, LLNL scientists and engineers have made significant progress in development of a three-dimensional “brain-on-a-chip” device capable of recording neural activity of human brain cell cultures grown outside the body. The team has developed a statistical model for analyzing the structures of neuronal networks that form among brain cells seeded on in vitro brain-on-a...

Carnegie Live: high energy density science and AI (VIDEO)

June 9, 2020 - 
In this Carnegie Live video, Seiichi Shimasaki, Science Counselor for the Japanese embassy in the U.S., described a multiyear science research program (nicknamed the “Moonshot”) to develop new technologies that help solve some of society’s most pressing challenges. He explained that the Government of Japan was looking for a data science program to mentor young scientists, which led to the...

Lab team studies calibrated AI and deep learning models to more reliably diagnose and treat disease

May 29, 2020 - 
A team led by LLNL computer scientist Jay Thiagarajan has developed a new approach for improving the reliability of artificial intelligence and deep learning-based models used for critical applications, such as health care. Thiagarajan recently applied the method to study chest X-ray images of patients diagnosed with COVID-19, arising due to the novel SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus. Read more at LLNL...