Statistical Challenges in Physical and Computational Experiments

• Activity Number: 99
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Author(s): Joanne R. Wendelberger*+
• Companies: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Keywords: experiment design ; computer experiments ; constraints

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 number of interesting statistical challenges in the design and analysis of experiments for both physical and computational experiments. Statistical problems arising in materials experiments and infrastructure simulations will be described that have inspired statistical research.