Guides · ISEF category
Computational Science and Engineering
ISEF category CSSS · difficulty for high-school students: medium
Using computation as the primary research tool: simulation, numerical methods, high-performance computing, scientific machine learning, and computational modeling of physical/chemical/biological systems.
How it's judged
ISEF scores 100 points across five criteria:
- Creative Ability: 30 pts
- Scientific Thought: 30 pts
- Thoroughness: 15 pts
- Skill: 15 pts
- Clarity: 10 pts
What wins
- Novel numerical method with proven convergence + application to a hard physical problem
- Physics-informed neural network applied to a new class of differential equations
- Agent-based model revealing emergent dynamics in a social or ecological system
- Climate model sensitivity analysis revealing novel feedback mechanism
- GPU-accelerated simulation enabling study of phenomena previously too expensive to compute
Common mistakes
- Running an existing simulation without modifying it and calling it original research
- Not validating simulation results against analytical solutions or experimental data
- Overfitting ML models and not reporting generalization performance
- No uncertainty quantification in numerical results
What you'll need
Laptop for most work. Large-scale simulation may require HPC (free allocations available via XSEDE/ACCESS program for students).
Ethics & approvals
Human-subjects (IRB) approval is usually not required for this category. Vertebrate-animal (IACUC) approval is usually not required.
The novelty bar
A new model, a new algorithm, or a new system being simulated that reveals scientifically interesting behavior not previously captured computationally.
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