US-RSE Newsletter

January 2022 Newsletter

newsletter survey supercomputing scipy

Published: Jan 31, 2022

In this 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. To receive our newsletter, join US-RSE here.

In this issue:

International RSE Survey

The 2021 RSE Survey is still open. You don’t need to be called an RSE to complete the survey. Your formal job title does not matter: we want to hear from you if you develop software for academic research as part of your work. The survey provides considerable detail about the RSE role: a person’s route into the role, the type of work they conduct, their working practices, job satisfaction and demographics. This means it takes around 20 minutes to complete. We appreciate that this is a significant amount of your time to donate - and we thank you for it!

We strongly encourage you to respond to the survey and to share it with others who may be interested. The results of this survey will be greatly beneficial to US-RSE as we move forward. The more responses we have, the better our knowledge.

For more details on the survey visit https://software.ac.uk/news/complete-international-rse-survey-and-help-us-understand-rse-community.

You can complete the 2021-2022 RSE survey in English, French, German, or Spanish.

US-RSE Community Workshop

We are excited to announce that the first US-RSE Association community building workshop will be held April 26-27, 2022 in Princeton, NJ, after two years of delays due to COVID-19! This will be a workshop focused on planning the best path forward to grow the US-RSE Association.

US-RSE Community Calls

The February community call will be on February 10, 2022 at 12 ET. We will be talking about Testing Frameworks and Processes.

Most developers will agree that testing is an important part of software development. But is testing of research software any different than testing of other types of software? Is testing in a research context different from testing in general software enterprises? And how and what do you test in the first place? What can we learn from each other and from practices elsewhere?

The call will discuss, and share knowledge and experiences, around questions such as why you would want to test and what the benefits are, what technologies are out there, and what processes RSEs do (and don’t) employ to test their software. No matter if you have never heard of testing or if you are an expert, come join us for an interesting discussion and to hear and share some “testimonies” of what has worked and not worked for others.

We have also changed the way we organize community calls. We meet two weeks prior to each community call to decide on a topic and discuss how to structure the call. Anyone is welcome to join the preparation call on Zoom.

RSE Stories Podcast

The Research Software Engineer Stories podcast has two new episodes posted. Check them out below!

RSE Stories is looking for a new co-host and other volunteers to help with production. You don’t need to commit to anything: start with one episode and go from there. Interested? Reach out to Vanessa via Slack.

US-RSE at SciPy 2022

US-RSE members plan to submit a proposal for a Birds of a Feather session at SciPy 2022 about US-RSE. This will be a moderated panel discussion. If you are planning to attend SciPy 2022 in July in Austin and interested in representing US-RSE on the panel, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/Mx4qW1zH518Ev2Cm6

Submissions are also open for talks, posters, and tutorials at SciPy 2022. Please consider submitting if you are working with Python in any capacity.

US-RSE at SC22

We have reserved a 10’ x 10’ small booth space for SC22 in November. Global health situations willing, we hope to be at location 4214 with some of our RSE friends from around the world. The US-RSE #sc22 Slack channel will be created soon. We look forward to chatting and brainstorming about fun RSE uses for a cozy 100 square foot space, and maybe answering the vexing question of how many RSEs can fit in a telephone booth.

Recent Job Postings

These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Careers page:

  1. Research Scientist / Senior Research Scientist: National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL Posted: Jan 26, 2022
  2. Software Engineer: University of Oregon, Eugene, OR Posted: Jan 26, 2022
  3. Research Software Engineer (Research Scientist I/II): Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA (Remote Eligible) Posted: Jan 26, 2022
  4. Software Developer: New York Structural Biology Center, New York, NY (Hybrid/Remote/Flexible) Posted: Jan 25, 2022
  5. Assistant Research Programmer/Research Programmer/Senior Research Programmer: National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL Posted: Jan 25, 2022
  6. Research Software Engineer - Early Career: Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM Posted: Jan 24, 2022
  7. Research Software Engineer - Experienced: Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM Posted: Jan 24, 2022
  8. Research Software Engineer - Entry Level: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN Posted: Jan 24, 2022
  9. Research Technology Engineer II: University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL Posted: Jan 19, 2022
  10. Research Programmer / Analyst: Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science, Pittsburgh, PA (Hybrid/Remote) Posted: Jan 14, 2022
  11. Developer in Residence: Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science, Pittsburgh, PA (Hybrid/Remote) Posted: Jan 14, 2022
  12. Software Eng/Developer III: Data Science Institute at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI Posted: Jan 13, 2022
  13. Large-Scale Data Management - Senior Software Engineer: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN Posted: Jan 11, 2022
  14. Computer Scientist and Software Engineer: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM Posted: Jan 10, 2022
  15. Senior Computer Scientist & Software Engineer: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM Posted: Jan 10, 2022
  16. Scientific Research Software Developer: JHU Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD Posted: Jan 09, 2022
  17. Researcher II - Software Developer for Transportation Data and Modeling Tools: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Remote) Posted: Jan 05, 2022
  18. Scientific Programmer and Educator: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Posted: Jan 05, 2022
  19. HPC Gateway Engineer: Tufts University (Remote) Posted: Dec 17, 2021
  20. Senior Full Stack Web Developer - Scientific Applications: Kitware, Clifton Park, NY; Carrboro, NC; Possible Remote Posted: Dec 17, 2021
  21. Research Software Engineer: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Posted: Dec 15, 2021
  22. Research Programmer / Analyst: Pittsburgh, PA (Hybrid/Remote) Posted: Dec 10, 2021
  23. Data Analyst I: Allen Institute, Seattle, WA Posted: Dec 10, 2021
  24. Research Software Engineer: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (Hybrid/Remote) Posted: Dec 08, 2021
  25. Digital Library Software Engineer: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Posted: Dec 08, 2021
  26. Research Software Engineer (Entry Level): RAND: Santa Monica, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; Boston, MA; Washington D.C. Posted: Dec 07, 2021
  27. Applications Developer, User Interface: Caltech, Pasadena, CA Posted: Nov 16, 2021
  28. Applications Developer, Data Systems: Caltech, Pasadena, CA Posted: Nov 16, 2021
  29. Assistant Director, Penn State’s Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Industry (AIMI) Center - Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS): State College, Pennsylvania Posted: Nov 10, 2021
  30. ICDS Technical Director - Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS): State College, Pennsylvania Posted: Nov 09, 2021
  31. System Engineering and Integration Lead - Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS): State College, Pennsylvania Posted: Nov 09, 2021
  32. Operations Team Lead - Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS): State College, Pennsylvania Posted: Nov 09, 2021
  33. Researcher: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI Posted: Oct 22, 2021

Community News

DEI Media Club

An instance of the DEI Media Club took place on January 31, 2022 at 12 ET/11 CT/10 MT/9 PT to discuss Redesigning STEM education for diversity and inclusivity. This was the last in the series of Podcast episode discussions. The next three DEI Media Clubs will discuss short videos. Join the #events or #dei-discussion channels for more updates!

Want to know more or get involved with the DEI working group? Visit our webpage for more details!

Interesting Events

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

Interesting Reads

Items you may have missed on the blog and Slack:

US-RSE Outreach

Upcoming Outreach opportunities with US-RSE:

Do you have an outreach idea (community, university, event, conference, etc.)? Send an email to outreach_wg@us-rse.org or post in the #outreach channel and tag @or-wg!

Starting in January 2022, US-RSE members are meeting biweekly as part of the Outreach Working Group. This WG aims to increase awareness of the US-RSE and RSEng as a profession. The group meets on alternate Fridays at 12 ET/11 CT/10 MT/9 PT. For more information, visit the Outreach WG webpage.

US-RSE Financials

We’re excited to announce that our t-shirt fundraiser raised $1643.66! The funds will appear in the US-RSE account soon. These funds will go toward the US-RSE financial goals outlined in the AGM meeting. There are now 112 US-RSE logo shirts and hoodies out there in the wild. We look forward to seeing pictures of them in action around the US-RSE universe and hearing about their new lives and adventures wherever they go.

Fundraising group starting

Following the awesome success of the t-shirt and fund-drive we are launching a fundraising channel on Slack and welcome anyone interested to join. If you are excited about helping raise money toward our current annual $5000/year (or more!) goal please feel free to join the fun. We are open to any and all ideas and expect to organize several fundraising activities during 2022. All the funds will go to the US-RSE organization’s financial goals and mission.

2021 financial gift shoutouts

Huge thanks to everyone who contributed financially in 2021. In total in 2021 there were 26 gifts to US-RSE. Many thanks to everyone who gave, both named and anonymous financial gifts. Shoutouts to Struan Clark, Ian Cosden, Julia Damerow, Chris Hill, Paul Hsi, Daniel Katz, Joseph H. Kennedy, Constantine Khrulev, Brendan Krueger, Sarom Leang, Christina Maimone, Marshall McDonnell, Lauren Milechin, Rafael Mudafort, Miranda Mundt, David Nicholson, Lance Parsons, Anya Peterson, Luke Rasmussen, Andrea Rubinstein, Vanessa Sochat, Kelly Sovacool, Blaise Thompson, Gaurav Vaidya and Jeff Wagner for your financial contributions.

See how we are doing financially

We organize US-RSE financials transparently via the Open Collective project. You can see all budgets, expenses, and contributions on this site. Anyone can go to the site and see the current accounts, income and expenses and ….. (if the mood takes you and you are able) make a tax-deductible gift to US-RSE!

2022 Steering Committee Members and Their Roles

Each year, the new US-RSE Steering Committee discusses the roles that are defined in US-RSE’s governance rules as well as other needed assignments (i.e., International RSE Council members), and determines who will fill each role. This year, the results are:

  • Chair: Ian Cosden
  • Vice-Chair: Sandra Gesing
  • Election Chair: Christina Maimone
  • Treasurer: Julia Damerow
  • Secretary: Jeffrey Carver
  • International RSE Council members: Nicole Brewer, Daniel S. Katz

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, Community Engagement, Fundraising and Newsletter are all needed and welcome.

As always we thank everyone who is already contributing for their help in shaping and growing the organization. In 2021 we added nearly 300 new members. There are still many more RSEs and friends of RSEs we would like to help connect and support. If you are interested in helping in any way please feel free to join in.

US-RSE Working Groups:

This newsletter is a joint effort of members of the US-RSE Association.

Share