Data Science in the News

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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...

Ana Kupresanin featured in FOE alumni spotlight

March 10, 2021 - 
LLNL's Ana Kupresanin, deputy director of the Center for Applied Scientific Computing and member of the Data Science Institute council, was recently featured in a Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) alumni spotlight. Kupresanin develops statistical and machine learning models that incorporate real-world variability and probabilistic behavior to quantify uncertainties in engineering and physics...

CASC research in machine learning robustness debuts at AAAI conference

Feb. 10, 2021 - 
LLNL’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC) has steadily grown its reputation in the artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) community—a trend continued by three papers accepted at the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held virtually on February 2–9, 2021. Computer scientists Jayaraman Thiagarajan, Rushil Anirudh, Bhavya Kailkhura, and Peer-Timo Bremer led...

Lawrence Livermore computer scientist heads award-winning computer vision research

Jan. 8, 2021 - 
The 2021 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV 2021) on Wednesday announced that a paper co-authored by LLNL computer scientist Rushil Anirudh received the conference’s Best Paper Honorable Mention award based on its potential impact to the field. The paper, titled "Generative Patch Priors for Practical Compressive Image Recovery,” introduces a new kind of prior—a...

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...

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...

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...

LLNL papers accepted into prestigious conference

July 9, 2020 - 
Two papers featuring LLNL scientists were accepted in the 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), one of the world’s premier conferences of its kind. Read more at LLNL News.

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...

COVID-19 research goes public through new portal

May 18, 2020 - 
A new online data portal is making available to the public a wealth of data LLNL scientists have gathered from their ongoing COVID-19 molecular design projects, particularly the computer-based “virtual” screening of small molecules and designed antibodies for interactions with the SARS-CoV-2 virus for drug design purposes. The portal houses a wealth of data LLNL scientists have gathered from...

New ML platform generates novel COVID-19 antibody sequences for experimental testing

May 1, 2020 - 
LLNL researchers have identified an initial set of therapeutic antibody sequences, designed in a few weeks using machine learning and supercomputing, aimed at binding and neutralizing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The research team is performing experimental testing on the chosen antibody designs. Read more at LLNL News.

Using data to build a secure future (PODCAST)

April 21, 2020 - 
On the Hidden in Plain Sight podcast, LLNL director Bill Goldstein explains how the Lab crunches data to shape the future. Listen at Mission.org.

Upgrades for LLNL supercomputer from AMD, Penguin Computing aid COVID-19 research

April 21, 2020 - 
Under a new agreement, AMD will supply upgraded graphics accelerators for LLNL’s Corona supercomputing cluster, expected to nearly double the system’s peak compute power. The system will be used by scientists through the public/private COVID-19 HPC Consortium, and by LLNL researchers, who are working on discovering potential antibodies and anti-viral compounds for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that...

New partnership results in increased access to compelling 'real world data'

April 21, 2020 - 
Through a new partnership between the UC San Diego Library, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI), and LLNL's Data Science Institute, UCSD library patrons can now access and analyze two new “real world” data sets from LLNL. The Open Data Initiative collection shares some of LLNL’s challenging and unique data sets, which range in complexity from large-scale, domain-specific simulated data...

Lab promotes diversity, tech at Women in Data Science regional event

April 3, 2020 - 
For the third consecutive year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) hosted a Women in Data Science (WiDS) regional event on March 2. Held at the HPC Innovation Center, the event drew dozens of attendees from LLNL, Sandia National Laboratories, local universities, and Bay Area commercial companies. Livermore was one of over 200 regional events in 60 countries coordinated with the...

Local Women in Data Science conference showcases Lab research

April 3, 2020 - 
For the third consecutive year, LLNL hosted a Women in Data Science (WiDS) regional event on March 2. The event drew dozens of attendees from LLNL, Sandia National Laboratories, local universities, and Bay Area commercial companies. Livermore was one of over 200 regional events in 60 countries coordinated with the main WiDS conference at Stanford University. According to the WiDS website...

LLNL creates web resources to aid in fight against COVID-19

March 30, 2020 - 
LLNL is fully committed to helping protect the U.S. from COVID-19 and to speed the recovery of those affected. As a world-class research institute, we have considerable infrastructure, unique research capabilities and a dedicated team of scientists and engineers supporting the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Our current COVID-19 research and response activities are focused on four broad...

Lab antibody, anti-viral research aids COVID-19 response

March 26, 2020 - 
LLNL scientists are contributing to the global fight against COVID-19 by combining artificial intelligence/machine learning, bioinformatics and supercomputing to help discover candidates for new antibodies and pharmaceutical drugs to combat the disease. Armed with the virus’ predicted 3D structure and a few antibodies known to bind and neutralize SARS, an LLNL team led by Daniel Faissol and...

New partnership to unleash U.S. supercomputing resources in the fight against COVID-19

March 26, 2020 - 
The White House announced the launch of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium to provide COVID-19 researchers worldwide with access to the world’s most powerful high performance computing resources that can significantly advance the pace of scientific discovery in the fight to stop the virus. Read more at LLNL News.

DSI sponsors LLNL hackathon

Feb. 18, 2020 - 
Since 2012, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) Computing directorate has held hackathons three times a year. These spring, summer, and fall events are scheduled over 24 hours and invite software teams to work on new ideas, programming languages, open-source tools, or project tasks. Exploration and experimentation are highly encouraged, and “It’s OK to fail” is the event mantra...