US-RSE Newsletter

May 2021 Newsletter

newsletter DEI workshop 501c3

Published: May 23, 2021

In this bi-monthly newsletter, we share recent, current, and planned activities of the US-RSE Association, and related news that we think is of interest to US-RSE members. Newsletters are also available on our website alongside the growing resources and information on the US-RSE Association. A sign-up option for our newsletter is available here.

In this issue:

Updates on Working Groups

Education & Training: This working group is for those that are interested in regular discussions about education & training for RSEs with a goal of developing concrete deliverables. The group meets on the first Monday of the month at 12:00 Eastern. Thus far, we have begun describing the types of people who work as RSEs and what their training needs might be and we are working on defining the list of skills often needed by RSEs. If you would like to join the conversation, please join the #education-training channel on the US-RSE Slack. You can post a message there if you would like to be invited to the next meeting.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI): We are organizing a book club / discussion group. The first book we’re going to discuss is “Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces’’ by Karen Catlin. We invite anyone interested to please sign up and join us on Tuesday, May 25 from 12:00 PM -12:50 PM ET for a discussion of “Part One: Watching and Observing as an Ally’’ (pages 1-55). We’re also planning the next event in our Speaker Series and finalizing an update of the US-RSE mission statement to better address DEI issues. Join the effort at the #dei-discussion channel on Slack.

Website: The website working group is working on a new design for the us-rse.org website. The group is meeting bi-weekly and a beta version of a new website is in development. The new site promises to have better functionality and usability while still retaining the international RSE community feel. If you’d like to contribute please join the #website channel in the US-RSE Slack to join in the conversation.

2021 US-RSE Virtual Workshop

Following the success of the 2020 US-RSE Virtual Workshop, the event this year is also virtual due to the ongoing pandemic. The 2021 US-RSE Virtual Workshop will be held on two non-consecutive half days: May 24 and 27, 2021, 1 - 4 pm ET, 12 - 3 pm CT, 11 am - 2 pm MT, 10 am - 1 pm PT.

The theme of the workshop is “A Path Forward for Research Software Engineers.” The workshop will feature talks, community events, and working group sessions. It will be held via Zoom and some parts, such as the talks, will be recorded and available after the workshop via the US-RSE YouTube channel. The workshop is free but registration is required, here.

You can still submit breakout sessions by Monday before the workshop! See more details here.

US-RSE Open Collective 501(c)(3) created

US-RSE has formalized its membership in the Open Collective Foundation (OCF) fiscal host entity. OCF provides us an open platform for transparently managing the US-RSE long-term finances. Next steps will include a blog post that describes the sorts of things this could facilitate, and a breakout discussion at the 2021 US-RSE Virtual Workshop on possible fiscal priorities for the US-RSE.

US-RSE Community Calls

We will have our next community call on June 10, 2021 at 12-1pm ET. Have a look nearer to the date in the slack channel #communitycalls to vote for a topic! You can find the videos from past community calls in our YouTube channel. Here is the one from April. We did not have a call in May since we will have the Second US-RSE Virtual Workshop on Monday and Thursday (May 24 and May 27). See above for more information.

Podcast

The Research Software Engineer Stories podcast has eight more episodes. Check them out below!

Interesting Events

Some other events coming up that may be of interest to RSEs include:

Upcoming CFP: RSE-HPC-2021 workshop at SC21

Research Software Engineers in HPC (RSE-HPC-2021) has been accepted as a workshop at SC21 in November! Details of the call for papers are being finalized and will be announced in early June, with a submission deadline in early August.

Recent Job Postings

These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Careers page:

  1. Senior Machine Learning in Medical Imaging Research Software & Systems Engineer: Oxford Biomedical Image Analysis Laboratory, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK
  2. Neutron Data and Computing Program Manager: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
  3. Senior Research Software Engineer: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
  4. Research Software Engineer: Brown University, Providence, RI
  5. HPC Applications Performance Engineer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Various locations
  6. Software Engineer: Benioff Ocean Initiative at University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (currently remote)

Community News

Interesting Reads

Items you may have missed on the blog and Slack:

US-RSE Outreach

Do you have a meeting, event, or community that might be interested in hearing more about US-RSE? We are happy to come talk to your group! Send an email to contact@us-rse.org or reach out via @sc on slack.

Get Involved

There are lots of ways to get involved with the US-RSE community. Of course, you can join us on Slack or volunteer for an interview with the RSE Stories podcast. But we’re also looking for ideas and help in many other places. See our list of projects and let us know how you’d like to help. Help with things like the Website Committee, Social Media, and Community Engagement are all needed.

Share