August 4, 2024

Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) at the University of South Carolina (USC), the first 2024 South Carolina AI4Science Summer Camp for high school students was a resounding success. The camp was organized by a distinguished team led by computer science Professor Jianjun Hu and Professor Ming Hu from Mechanical Engineering along with Professor Sophya Garashchuk from Chemistry, Paul Sagona from Research Computing, and Krystal Dubose, Director of Enrollment Management at CEC of USC. This successful camp is a demonstration of our faculty’s dedication and commitment to outreach activities for the public in South Carolina.

The 12-day camp (from July 22 to August 2nd,2024) featured a blend of in-person and online experiences, with two onsite meetings at USC and 10 days of online tutorials and project assistance via Zoom. 16 students from 11 high schools across South Carolina participated in the camp, which included professional and passionate talks by USC’s leading experts on AI4Science, hands-on tutorials on applying machine learning to materials science led by Ph.D. student teaching assistants (Nicholas Micklaucic, Qinyang Li, and Lai Wei), free lunches sponsored by CEC of USC, and a visit to the newly funded, million-dollar high-performance supercomputer (NSF Award #2320292). The students also faced exciting challenges during their final projects and celebrated the culmination of their efforts with the awarding of AI4Science Summer Camp certificates. The camp introduced students to AI applications in materials and molecular science, including property prediction, crystal structure prediction, and materials informatics analysis. The camp concluded with a final project competition, showcasing the students' innovative work. The winners were:

  • Gold Medal Team: Caleb Liu, Annie Xu, Sophie Xu, and Justus Sumpter. Project topic: machine learning models for thermoelectric property prediction.
  • Silver Medal Team: Anthony Fu, Jonathan Fu, and Jennifer Liu. Project topic: computational algorithms for crystal structure prediction.
  • Bronze Medal Team: Miguel Shim, Olivia Li, and Joseph Song. Project topic: materials informatics analysis of superconductors.

For more information about the camp, please visit AI4Science Summer Camp. We encourage and welcome more students to take advantage of this valuable opportunity for scientific exploration in the emerging field of AI for Science in Summer 2025.