NERSC Staff Participate in Regional Science Bowl

February 5, 2013

NERSC's Elizabeth Bautista moderates DOE Science Bowl Competition at Berkeley Lab.

High School students from all corners of the San Francisco Bay Area flocked to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) on Saturday, February 2, 2013 to battle in the Department of Energy’s Regional Science Bowl—an academic competition that tests students' knowledge in all areas of science.

After a day of intense competition, the team from Palo Alto High School emerged as the overall winners. The Palo Alto team will travel to Washington D.C. in April to compete in the national competition. First runner up was San Francisco’s Lowell High School, followed by Albany High School and Walnut Creek’s Northgate High School.

A number of staff from DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) participated in Saturday’s event as moderators, scientific judges, timekeepers and scorekeepers, including: Elizabeth Bautista, Shane Canon, Isaac Ovadia, David Skinner and Jay Srinivasan.

DOE created the National Science Bowl in 1991 to encourage students to excel in mathematics and science and to pursue careers in these fields. More than 225,000 students have participated in the National Science Bowl throughout its 22-year history, and it is one of the nation’s largest science competitions. Saturday’s event was hosted by Berkeley Lab’s Center for Science and Engineering Education. Other regional high schools going to DOE’s 2013 National Science Bowl include Mountain View High School and San Francisco’s University High School.

For more information: http://science.energy.gov/wdts/nsb/

About Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab

High performance computing plays a critical role in scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly rely on advances in computer science, mathematics, computational science, data science, and large-scale computing and networking to increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our universe. Berkeley Lab’s Computing Sciences Area researches, develops, and deploys new foundations, tools, and technologies to meet these needs and to advance research across a broad range of scientific disciplines.