Data Science in the News

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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...

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.

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...

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...

Interpretable AI in healthcare (PODCAST)

May 17, 2020 - 
LLNL's Jay Thiagarajan joins the Data Skeptic podcast to discuss his recent paper "Calibrating Healthcare AI: Towards Reliable and Interpretable Deep Predictive Models." The episode runs 35:50. Listen at Data Skeptic.

The incorporation of machine learning into scientific simulations at LLNL (VIDEO)

May 5, 2020 - 
In this video from the Stanford HPC Conference, Katie Lewis presents "The Incorporation of Machine Learning into Scientific Simulations at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory." Read more and watch the video at insideHPC.

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...

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...

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.

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...

Cindy Gonzales forges a new career in data science

Sept. 25, 2019 - 
Through LLNL’s Data Science Immersion Program, Gonzales is now among the Lab’s newest data scientists. For two and a half years, she juggled a demanding workload—coordinating Computing’s Scholar Program, interning with data scientists, learning from mentors, supporting LLNL’s Data Science Institute, and attending college part time—while also having her first child. Read more at LLNL Computing...

Collaboration drives data science workshop

Sept. 12, 2019 - 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) Data Science Institute (DSI) hosted its second annual workshop on July 23–24, 2019. Co-sponsored by the University of California (UC) system, the event drew more than 200 participants to Garré Winery in Livermore. A common theme ran throughout both days: Collaboration is always welcome. Indeed, feedback from last year’s workshop inspired a...

New open-air facility will be testing ground for autonomous drones, vehicles and robots

July 25, 2019 - 
LLNL’s new OS-150 Robotics Laboratory is an outdoor, 8,000 square-foot enclosure that will serve as a proving ground for the autonomous drones, vehicles and robots of the future. Informally known as the "drone pen," the 50-foot-tall rectangular enclosure, located directly across from one of the Lab’s main engineering buildings, is allowing operators to pilot their drones safely and...

LLNL Center for Applied Scientific Computing: accelerating scientific discovery (VIDEO)

July 12, 2019 - 
The Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC) serves as LLNL’s window to the broader computer science, computational physics, applied mathematics, and data science research communities. Major thrust areas in CASC research include: (1) Increasing simulation fidelity by integrating multi-physics and multi-scale models, increasing resolution through advanced numerical methods and more...

Protecting image classification in artificial intelligence

July 8, 2019 - 
To address vulnerability concerns in image classification, a new subfield of machine learning has emerged called adversarial machine learning, which focuses on the security of machine learning algorithms. Thomas Hogan, a doctoral student of mathematics at UC Davis, spent his summer investigating this new area of research during the National Science Foundation’s Mathematical Sciences Graduate...

How machine learning could change science

April 29, 2019 - 
Artificial intelligence tools are revolutionizing scientific research and changing the needs of high-performance computing. LLNL has been exploiting the relationship between simulation and experiments to build predictive codes using machine learning and data analytics techniques. Read more at Data Center Dynamics.

Machine learning on a mission

April 11, 2019 - 
Machine learning uses computers to learn from data and make predictions about the environment. As the world generates more data, interpretation becomes more difficult. A smart machine—one that adapts to new information on the fly—can speed up processing and analysis times and improve its accuracy in identification and prediction tasks. Although commercial and consumer applications of ML are...