LLF's Inaugural Undergraduate SIAM Fellowship
Meet Everett Grethel
During the summer of 2023, LLF partnered with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to support undergraduate students seeking to advance their applied mathematics skills in a world-class research facility addressing some of society’s greatest scientific and technological challenges. This fellowship was designed to inspire students to further explore their interests in applied mathematics, computational science and/or data science.
LLF’s first SIAM Fellow, Everett Grethel, is studying computer science at the University of Connecticut. His college journey began in the field of fine arts, as he felt he had not received much encouragement to pursue STEM and was unsure about the broad opportunities within the field. Along the way, Everett came to understand the boundless potential that STEM provides. STEM allowed him to work on ideas and problems that have never been solved before, the results of which can have a positive impact…and he was hooked! Everett’s future aspirations are to apply his skills for climate change mitigation by working in energy storage and renewable energy solutions.
This past summer under the mentorship of LLNL PostDoc Diego Oyarzun Dinamarca, Everett worked on the Modular Autonomous Research System (MARS), building a surrogate modeling pipeline for Bayesian optimization (BO) of heat transfer simulations. MARS helps automate experimentation by exploring a vast input space that is intractable for a human-based search. The search is trying to understand key relationships relevant to a particular problem. Bayesian optimization is a machine learning approach that probabilistically selects data points in order to maximize or minimize some objective function.
When sampling is expensive, points must be chosen carefully. BO balances the search tradeoff between areas of low and high uncertainty. And surrogate modeling can be thought of as doing active learning before BO. Everett’s pipeline was so successful, he was invited to extend his fellowship a few weeks to continue working on his project.
In Everett’s words, “Being able to work at LLNL and spend time with staff scientists allowed me to experience what working as a researcher after graduation might look like. Without this opportunity, I do not know where I would be. With it, I have confidence that my aspirations in doing science for good are realizable.”
Everett will be applying to PhD programs and is hoping to return to the Lab after graduating in December this year.
A special thank you to LLF donor and LLNL Principal Associate Director for Computing, Bruce Hendrickson, for working to connect the Foundation and SIAM, along with his willingness to support and meet with Everett over the summer!
Fun facts about Everett: He once restored a discarded single-manned sailboat (embodying the saying “someone else’s trash is another’s treasure”). He also enjoys going on long-distance treks.
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