US-RSE July 2022 Newsletter

July 2022

newsletter supercomputing

Published: Aug 2, 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:

Steering Committee Recap

US-RSE Steering Committee meeting minutes are public, but we doubt many people read them! So to increase transparency and share information more broadly, we’re adding a section to the newsletter to recap recent discussions and activities.

In May, June, and July, the Steering Committee focused on:

  • Planning and coordinating events
    • Planning for the Virtual Workshop
    • Details of being an exhibitor at the SC22 Conference
    • Initial planning for an in-person RSE conference in 2023
    • ADSA/US-RSE Career Workshop
    • International RSE Day
    • US-RSE Annual General Meeting and election
  • Follow-up tasks from the April community building workshop, including getting blog posts written, distributing remaining resources from the conference, and coordinating with those who agreed to lead specific efforts. See the News section of the website for three posts that resulted from the community building workshop so far.
  • Logistics for working groups: their interactions with the Steering Committee and how individual working groups are structured and operate
  • Updates on the activities of existing working groups and plans for new groups
  • Discussing how to involve the community in revising Code of Conduct procedures
  • US-RSE’s financial status and resources
  • Initial discussions on whether an advisory board separate from the Steering Committee might be useful for US-RSE

US-RSE Virtual Workshop 2022 - September 14&16, 2022

The theme of the 2022 US-RSE Virtual Workshop is “Make it happen! Towards a diverse and sustainable future!” The workshop will feature talks, and breakout 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 will be free but registration will be required.

The workshop will be held on two non-consecutive half days: September 14 and 16, 2022, 1-4pm ET/12-3pm CT/11am-2pm MT/10am-1pm PT. All information related to the workshop can be found on the workshop website.

Steering Committee Elections

Yearly elections for the Steering Committee are happening this fall. Self-nominations are encouraged and will be due by November 4th. Thinking of becoming a candidate? There’s a new Candidate Guidance document created by attendees of the Community Building workshop and the DEI working group. Check it out for details on what Steering Committee members actually do, suggestions for building experience relevant to the Steering Committee, and ideas for writing a compelling candidate statement that will let others know why you’d make a great addition to the Steering Committee.

US-RSE at PEARC22

US-RSE organized a panel at PEARC22 titled Building Enduring Cyberinfrastructures - The Role of Professional Research Software Engineers. Thanks to the panelists for leading a great discussion that helped several audience members connect with the community they were looking for - RSEs! Panelists: Rachana Ananthakrishnan (University of Chicago, Globus), Julia Damerow (Arizona State University), Sandra Gesing (UIC, Science Gateways Community Institute), Blake Joyce (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Chris Martin (The Exosphere Project), Karen Tomko (Ohio Supercomputing Center). Thanks as well to the organizers: Sandra Gesing, Chris Hill, Lee Liming, Christina Maimone.

RSE-HPC-2022 Workshop at SC22

Submission deadline is Friday, August 5!

We are excited to announce the Research Software Engineers in HPC Workshop (RSE-HPC-2022) to be held as part of SC22 (hybrid event, in Dallas, TX and virtually). This will be a half-day workshop 2:00pm-5:30pm CST (UTC-6), Sunday, November 13, 2022.

This workshop will bring together RSEs and allies involved in HPC, from all over the world, to grow the RSE community by establishing and strengthening professional networks of current RSEs and RSE leaders. We’ll discuss the current activities and plans of national RSE organizations, discuss the needs of RSEs and RSE groups, and brainstorm ways RSE organizations can help address these.

We encourage prospective participants to submit position papers (limit of 2 pages, not counting references; no format prescribed) on topics related to RSE issues. Papers and discussion topics should be submitted using the submission website. The deadline for submissions is Friday, August 5, 2022, at 11:59 PM AoE (UTC-12).

For more information, see the workshop website or contact the organizers.

URSSI awards and postdoc opportunity

The Sloan Foundation has announced three awards to begin the implementation phase of the US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI). One of these awards, studying research software policy, is now seeking a postdoc at NCSA.

Special Issue of Computing in Science & Engineering - Future of Research Software Engineers in the US

The goal of this special issue of CiSE is to explore the future of research software engineers in the United States, with emphasis on the cultural, educational, and professional paradigm shifts that need to occur. For more details see the Call for Papers. Paper deadline: October 2, 2022.

Community News

RSE Stories Podcast

The Research Software Engineer Stories podcast has four 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.

ReSA’s Research Software Community Forum

The Research Software Alliance (ReSA) is hosting a monthly online community forum for the global research software community which is open to anyone. The first call is scheduled for 19 July 11:00 – 12:00 UTC (7 am EDT, 6 am CDT). The agenda offers an opportunity for participants to share information. This month’s short talk will focus on the outcomes of Vive la différence - research software engineers, a workshop that considered how to reframe research software engineering to place diversity, equity and inclusion as a central organising principle. To join this meeting: connection info; calendar invite

FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) Completion

The FAIR4RS Working Group is pleased to announce the release of version 1.0 of the FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS Principles), after about 2 years of work by over 500 people. See the ReSA blog for more information.

Interesting Events

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

Interesting Reads or Podcasts

Items you may have missed on the blog and Slack:

  • A year ago, PLOS Computational Biology introduced a new journal policy requiring authors to make public any code directly related to the results of their article upon publication of the work. This blog explores the drivers behind this policy change.
  • The Netherlands eScience Center and NWO, the Dutch Research Council formed a working group to develop guidelines for software management plans

DEI Working Group

The second RSE Stories Podcast SC22 mini-series podcast episode has been published! In it, our very own Miranda Mundt interviews Marina Kraeva about SC22’s Early Career Program, offered by the SC22 Inclusivity Committee!

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

US-RSE Education and Training Working Group

The Education and Training Working Group is in the process of organizing a Speaker and Tutorial series for the US-RSE Community. These will include technical talks and the occasional tutorial on Software Engineering topics, tools, and best practices. Keep an eye out for an announcement of our first talk! If you have any input, know someone with a good tutorial or talk, or would like to be involved in organizing these events, you can reach out to the Education and Training Working Group through the #education-training channel on the USRSE Slack.

US-RSE Outreach

Upcoming Outreach opportunities with US-RSE:

  • The Research Software Engineers in eScience workshop will take place as part of eScience 2022, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 11-14, 2022. This workshop will present RSE contributions to scientific research through a series of talks that explore scientific project needs, how access to RSEs made the project successful, and how this work can be applied to future scientific research efforts. The workshop will be of interest to existing RSEs, potential RSEs, domain scientists, and software developers who want to understand the lessons from both good and bad research software engineering experiences.

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!

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:

Recent Job Postings

These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Careers page:

  1. Student Assistant II - Research Software Engineer: NCAR, Remote Posted: Jul 28, 2022
  2. Associate Software Engineer (multiple positions): University of Washington, Seattle, WA (remote/hybrid) Posted: Jul 24, 2022
  3. Senior Software Engineer (multiple positions): University of Washington, Seattle, WA (remote/hybrid) Posted: Jul 24, 2022
  4. Principal Lead Software Engineer (multiple positions): University of Washington, Seattle, WA (remote/hybrid) Posted: Jul 24, 2022
  5. Postdoctoral Fellow (Quantitative Modeling Group): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, CA Posted: Jul 13, 2022
  6. Research Software Engineer: University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware Posted: Jul 07, 2022
  7. Research Associate: University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO (remote friendly) Posted: Jul 07, 2022
  8. Research Software Engineer, Epigenomics Core Facility: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Posted: Jul 01, 2022
  9. Research Software Engineer, Breeding Insight Program: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Posted: Jul 01, 2022
  10. Senior Research Software Engineer - Application Engineering: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN Posted: Jun 16, 2022
  11. Software Developer 3: Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford University, Santa Clara, CA Posted: Jun 14, 2022
  12. Data Scientist (Open Rank): Center for Computational Neuroscience, Flatiron Institute, New York, New York Posted: Jun 13, 2022
  13. Research Software Engineer - Application Engineering: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN Posted: Jun 10, 2022
  14. Research Software Engineer - Neutrons: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN Posted: Jun 10, 2022
  15. Postdoctoral Research Scholar - Extensible molecular analysis tools for reproducible science: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Posted: Jun 01, 2022
  16. Scientific Software Engineer, Hit Discovery: Schrödinger, New York City, NY Posted: May 31, 2022
  17. Junior Specialist with Data Science Focus: University of California, San Francisco Posted: Apr 07, 2022

Other Job Boards

The following boards might also be of interest.

  1. Software Carpentries Job Opportunities
  2. Academic Data Science Alliance Jobs
  3. Society of Research Software Engineering Vacancies

Please read our job posting policy first, then fill out this google form to request additions to the job board.

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

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