Data Science in the News

Dev Day features DSI-sponsored career panel

The DSI's new career panel series continued on July 15 at LLNL's Developer Day. Hosted by the Computing Directorate, the panelists discussed their career journeys and how they stay on top of the latest software technologies. “Throughout the past 16 months, it has been exceptionally challenging to feel connected with peers across the Lab,” said Kyle Dickerson, who has co-organized all five...

Career panel series kicks off with women in Computing leadership roles

More than 100 LLNL staff and students gathered virtually for the first session of a new career panel series inspired by the annual WiDS conference and sponsored by the DSI. Panelists discussed how they have shaped their careers at the Lab and in Computing, their journeys into leadership roles, and how they navigate career challenges. Data scientist and panel series organizer Cindy Gonzales...

Virtual LLNL-UC Merced Data Science Challenge tackles asteroid detection though machine learning

Over three weeks, students from the University of California, Merced collaborated online with mentors at LLNL to tackle a real-world challenge problem: using machine learning to identify potentially hazardous asteroids that could pose an existential threat to humanity. Throughout the event, the teams tackled problems around the theme of “Astronomy for Planetary Defense.” For the main...

Brian Gallagher combines science with service

Brian Gallagher works on applications of machine learning for a variety of science and national security questions. He’s also a group leader, student mentor, and the new director of LLNL’s Data Science Challenge. The Lab has enabled Gallagher to combine scientific pursuits with leadership positions and people-focused responsibilities. “For a long time, my primary motivation was learning new...

Winter hackathon highlights data science talks and tutorial

The Data Science Institute (DSI) sponsored LLNL’s 27th hackathon on February 11–12. Held four times a year, these seasonal events bring the computing community together for a 24-hour period where anything goes: Participants can focus on special projects, learn new programming languages, develop skills, dig into challenging tasks, and more. The winter hackathon was the DSI’s second such...

Ana Kupresanin featured in FOE alumni spotlight

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

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

LLNL papers accepted into prestigious conference

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.

Lockdown doesn’t hinder annual Data Science Challenge

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...

UC Merced students receive NSF research fellowships

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.

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

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...

DSI sponsors LLNL hackathon

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...

Department of Energy researchers share data management strategies at first-ever “Data Day”

It’s become something of a mantra of the digital age: Data is the new currency. Especially in science, where it’s hard to find a single project that doesn’t involve generating or consuming massive amounts of data. In light of the growing awareness of the critical importance of data management across the Department of Energy complex, more than 100 researchers from DOE national laboratories...

Successful simulation and visualization coupling proves the power of Sierra

As the first National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) production supercomputer backed by GPU- (graphics processing unit) accelerated architecture, Sierra’s acquisition required a fundamental shift in how scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) program their codes to take advantage of the GPUs. The majority of Sierra’s computational power—95 percent of its 125...

Cindy Gonzales forges a new career in data science

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...

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

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...

Two-week workshop lets UC Merced students step into shoes of Lab computer scientists

From May 20-31, 21 undergraduate and graduate students, many of them first-generation college students, interned at the Lab. While they were on site, the students, along with their Lab mentors, were tasked with using machine learning and other computational methods to tackle real-world problems in computational immunology. Read more at LLNL News.