Sandia National Labs Academic Alliance Collaboration Report 2020-2021

TACKLING NATIONAL SECURITY PROJECTS IN DATA SCIENCE AT DATA MINE SYMPOSIUM

Identifying insights from enormous datasets and using data as a fuel for artificial intelligence and automated systems are areas of strategic importance to U.S. security, so Sandia joined forces with Purdue to design two national security projects in data science that integrate with undergraduate coursework. Twenty students worked on Sandia projects related to flight pattern analysis and multi-agent adversarial game theory in the Data Mine, a living and learning community on the Purdue campus. Purdue’s Integrative Data Science Initiative boasts many world-leading efforts in research and education. The Data Mine provides upwards of 800 students with coursework opportunities in 20 different learning communities to prepare them for the data-driven workforce of the 21st century. Originally planned as an in-person presentation, the alternate virtual Data Mine Symposium took place on April 13, 2020. Ten students presented on two Sandia projects at the e-symposium. Jason Reinhardt from Sandia’s Systems Research and Analysis department also met with eight students to discuss using the game theory approach to detect strategy deviation in game play. There was a second semester of activity in spring 2021, culminating in a virtual presentation this past April. “The presentations demonstrated the great progress made by the students in understanding key national security related problems leveraging data science,” said Ken Patel, Sandia’s campus partnerships manager at Purdue University. He added, “Purdue provided Sandia with collaborative space in the heart of campus to engage with Purdue students on national security-related projects. The agreement provides a framework for streamlining our future partnership.”

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Sandia Academic Alliance Program