Data Science in the News

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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...

Data Science Institute collaborates with Livermore Lab Foundation and UC Merced to host two year-long fellowships

Dec. 16, 2020 - 
Early this spring, the Livermore Lab Foundation (LLF) in partnership with the UC Merced, awarded two rising seniors, Jose Garcia-Esparza and Teagan Zuniga, two one-year $15,000 fellowships to participate in the Lab’s Data Science Summer Institute (DSSI) and continue a part-time fellowship at the Lab for the remainder of the 2020–21 school year. The fellowships allow deserving students...

After successful virtual summer, DSSI looks ahead to 2021

Dec. 14, 2020 - 
In a year distinguished by the COVID-19 pandemic, LLNL’s Data Science Summer Institute (DSSI) pivoted quickly to an all-virtual program. The 28 students in the class of 2020 worked from their homes and attended online seminars, one-on-one mentoring sessions, team-building games, and other activities. Instead of an in-person poster session, the students participated in a virtual Summer Slam...

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...

LLNL to provide supercomputing resources to universities selected by NNSA Advanced Simulation and Computing program

Oct. 2, 2020 - 
LLNL will provide significant computing resources to students and faculty from nine universities that were newly selected for participation in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)’s Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (PSAAP). The program is funded by NNSA’s Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program. The primary focus of this third phrase of PSAAP will...

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.

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...

Machine learning model may perfect 3D nanoprinting

July 29, 2020 - 
Two-photon lithography (TPL)—a widely used 3D nanoprinting technique that uses laser light to create 3D objects—has shown promise in research applications but has yet to achieve widespread industry acceptance due to limitations on large-scale part production and time-intensive setup. LLNL scientists and collaborators turned to machine learning to address two key barriers to industrialization...

Lockdown doesn’t hinder annual Data Science Challenge

June 26, 2020 - 
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place restrictions, this year’s Data Science Challenge with the University of California, Merced was an all-virtual offering. The two-week challenge involved 21 UC Merced students who worked from their homes through video conferencing and chat programs to develop machine learning models capable of differentiating potentially explosive materials from...

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...

UC Merced students receive NSF research fellowships

June 3, 2020 - 
Maia Powell, a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at UC Merced, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Powell participated in the DSI's Data Science Challenge this summer, serving as a team lead for other students. Read more at UC Merced.

AI identifies change in microstructure in aging materials

May 26, 2020 - 
LLNL scientists have taken a step forward in the design of future materials with improved performance by analyzing its microstructure using AI. The work recently appeared online in the journal Computational Materials Science. Read more at LLNL News.

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...

Faces of STEM: Brenda Ng (VIDEO)

May 11, 2020 - 
In this video, LLNL machine learning scientist Brenda Ng explains why she loves her job in STEM, what advice she has for others, what inspired her to go into STEM, and what she does in her free time. Watch on YouTube.

Building knowledge and insights using machine learning of scientific articles

May 5, 2020 - 
Nanomaterials are widely used at LLNL and in industry for many applications from catalysis to optics to additive manufacturing. The combination of nanomaterials’ shape, size, and composition can impart unique optical, electrical, mechanical, or catalytic properties needed for a specific application. However, synthesizing a specific nanomaterial and scaling up its production is often...

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.

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...

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...