Office of Science
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the Nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science portfolio has two principal thrusts: direct support of scientific research and direct support of the development, construction, and operation of unique, open-access scientific user facilities.
ASCR
The mission of the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program is to discover, develop, and deploy computational and networking capabilities to analyze, model, simulate, and predict complex phenomena important to the Department of Energy (DOE). A particular challenge of this program is fulfilling the science potential of emerging computing systems and other novel computing architectures, which will require numerous significant modifications to today’s tools and techniques to deliver on the promise of exascale science.
BER
Biological and Environmental Research (BER) advances world-class biological and environmental research programs and scientific user facilities to support DOE’s energy, environment, and basic research missions. The BER program supports fundamental research and scientific user facilities to address diverse and critical global challenges. The program seeks to understand how genomic information is translated to functional capabilities, enabling more confident redesign of microbes and plants for sustainable biofuel production, improved carbon storage, or contaminant bioremediation. BER research advances understanding of the roles of Earth’s biogeochemical systems (the atmosphere, land, oceans, sea ice, and subsurface) in determining climate so we can predict climate decades or centuries into the future, information needed to plan for future energy and resource needs. Solutions to these challenges are driven by a foundation of scientific knowledge and inquiry in atmospheric chemistry and physics, ecology, biology, and biogeochemistry.
NNSA
Established by Congress in 2000, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.
ASC
Established in 1995, the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program supports the U.S. Defense Programs’ shift in emphasis from test-based confidence to simulation-based confidence. Under ASC, computer simulation capabilities are developed to analyze and predict the performance, safety, and reliability of nuclear weapons and to certify their functionality.
CSSE
The mission of the Computational Systems & Software Environment (CSSE) sub-program is to build integrated, balanced, and scalable computational capabilities to meet the predictive simulation requirements of NNSA. This sub-program strives to provide users of ASC computing resources a stable and seamless computing environment for all ASC-deployed platforms. Along with these powerful systems that ASC will maintain and continue to field, the supporting software infrastructure that CSSE is responsible for deploying on these platforms includes many critical components, from system software and tools, to input/output (I/O), storage and networking, to post-processing visualization and data analysis tools. Achieving this deployment objective requires sustained investment in applied R&D activities to create technologies that address ASC’s unique mission-driven need for scalability, parallelism, performance, and reliability.
ISTI
LANL’s Information Science and Technology Center and line organizations across LANL, the Information Science and Technology Institute engages in, implements, and/or broadly fosters collaborative research, capability and workforce development, technical exchange, program development activities, and institutionally-focused strategic planning. ISTI manages, organizes, sponsors, and/or co-sponsors (1) summer school/internship programs, (2) rapid response calls, (3) university collaborations, (4) workshops, (5) the IS&T Seminar Series, and (6) workforce education initiatives.