Statistical Challenges in National and Global Security

• Activity Number: 472
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Author(s): Joanne Wendelberger*+
• Companies: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Keywords: uncertainty quantification ; simulation ; probabilistic computing ; visualization ; large data

Abstract

The Statistical Sciences Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory provides cutting-edge statistical research to address a variety of problems that are of importance to national and global security including challenges in defense, energy, materials, education, infrastructure, and environment. Typically, these problems are interdisciplinary in nature and require extensive interaction and collaboration with scientists and engineers from other fields. Many of these problems require the integration of scientific theory, complex models, and physical data. This has led to a interesting statistical challenges in a number of areas including uncertainty quantification, in situ analysis of computer simulations, probabilistic computing, and analysis and visualization of large data. Increasingly, solution of these problems is requiring the use of modern computational approaches and use of advanced computing resources. Several examples will be discussed where innovative statistical work is required to address these complex problems.