ORNL Seeks Participants for 2020 Data Challenge

The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is seeking contestants for its annual Smoky Mountains Computational Sciences and Engineering Conference (SMC) Data Challenge. The Data Challenge asks teams of one to four participants (students, faculty, or industry professionals) to analyze real scientific data sets and find solutions to challenge questions.

Registration is open until June 22. All teams must submit a 6-8 page paper describing their solution by July 27. Top entries will be invited to attend the SMC2020 conference on August 25-27 in Kingsport, Tennessee to present a poster. The best presentation will win the overall prize.

This years challenges include:

1. Understanding Rapid Cycling Temperature Logs from the Vulcan Diffractometer

2. Towards a Universal Classifier of Crystallographic Space Groups

3. Impact of Urban Weather on Building Energy Use

4. Computational Urban Data Analytics

5. Using Machine Learning to Understand Uncertainty in Subsurface Exploration

6. Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques to Match Patients with their Best Clinical Trial Options

7. The Kaggle CORD-19 Data Challenge

See the SMC2020 website for registration information. The conference is currently scheduled as an in-person event, but the organizers are monitoring developments with the COVID-19 pandemic will explore options for converting to a virtual event if necessary.