2022 Steering Committee Candidate Information
Published: Nov 18, 2022
Candidates for the 2022 US-RSE Steering Committee election are listed below. Four of these candidates will be elected for a two-year term starting January 2023.
If you have questions for the candidates, or questions about the election, please use the #election channel on Slack. You must be registered as a member by Sunday, November 20th to be eligible to vote in this election.
Candidates are listed in random order.
- Julia Damerow
- Lauren Milechin
- Rinku Gupta
- Joshua Teves
- Kenton McHenry
- Miranda Mundt
- Keith Beattie
- Lance Parsons
- Aaron Holmes
Julia Damerow
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
I strongly believe that RSEs are a critical part of the research process, and I am passionate about building software for research. However, like probably most RSEs, I have experienced and witnessed the challenges that come with choosing this career. As the community of research software engineers in the US, US-RSE is in the ideal position to support and advocate for RSEs and to contribute to the creation of a recognized career path for RSEs. I am nominating myself because I want to help in making this happen!
Another reason I would like to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee is that a big part of my work is in the context of Digital Humanities. I often find that this field is less represented in the overall RSE community than other fields. I would like to be a voice for Digital Humanities RSEs on the Steering Committee.
I’m currently a member of the US-RSE Steering Committee and this is the end of my first term. I would like to continue to serve on the Steering Committee to support the efforts of this great community and its amazing members.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I am currently a member of the US-RSE Steering Committee and the treasurer of US-RSE. I am co-organizing the monthly community calls and am a member of the Training & Education Working Group. To promote US-RSE in the field of Digital Humanities, I have presented a poster about US-RSE at the ACH 2021 conference. Furthermore, I was on the organizing committee and a participant of the first US-RSE Community Building workshop held in 2022. In 2021 and 2022, I co-organized the US-RSE Virtual Workshop.
More broadly, I contribute to the RSE community by being on the Steering Committee of DHTech, a community of people doing RSE work in the Digital Humanities. We organize conference workshops, meetups, and other events to build and support a Digital Humanities RSE community. I’m also part of a DHTech working group that aims to implement a community code review system, which I believe is crucial to achieve trustworthy and maintainable code for research.
Finally, I work a lot with students and student workers that I mentor in developing research software. While most of them move on to work for tech companies after graduation, they do learn about the existence of the profession of research software engineers through their work with me. I hope that eventually the need for trained RSEs as well as the interest of students in this profession will lead to a recognized career path for RSEs.
Lauren Milechin
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
I joined US-RSE a few years ago looking for a community I could participate in and help work towards worthwhile efforts. As an HPC facilitator, I work with all levels of researchers every day and see the code that they run on the systems we maintain. I have focused heavily in education and training for our researchers, and through that have found that there is a need for more readily available resources for best practices in research software. From the researcher who is 100% focused on the science outputs of their code, to the graduate student who has found that they really like the software aspect of their work, I think the US-RSE organization has the opportunity to work towards providing the resources needed to produce more reliable and reproducible scientific computing results, and the support to establish a career path as a research software engineer. I have felt very welcomed into this community and I am very happy to contribute to its goals by participating on the steering committee.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I joined the US-RSE Education and Training working group last year with the goal to become more involved with US-RSE and now co-chair the group. Together we have worked to produce lists of training resources, skills lists, and have officially started a seminar series featuring technical talks and tutorials. Our first technical talk was very well attended by RSEs and others in the community. I attended the US-RSE Community Building Workshop in April and led a breakout group on Education and Training, which led to a blog post summarizing our discussion on the Education and Training needs of RSEs, and helped contribute to the Education and Training working group seminar series. I have served on the Program Committee for the Research Software Engineers in HPC workshop at Supercomputing since 2020.
More broadly, I am active in the HPC education and training space. I help run a yearly workshop on Scaling HPC Education and Training at the IEEE HPEC conference. I have participated in and helped run other education focused workshops and Birds of a Feather sessions, including one at PEARC this year on using educational games to teach HPC concepts. I am a co-instructor on an introductory HPC course (Practical HPC) that has been converted into a fully asynchronous online course that is openly available, and have made available the activities and games we use for the in person course in the form of detailed instructor guides.
Rinku Gupta
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
Over the last two decades, I have worked as a RSE in the DOE lab environment as well as in industry and academia. I have witnessed and have been a part of the RSE movement that continues to grow leaps and bounds. What was initially an ambiguous career path for me and other software engineers working in research, is now solidifying and slowly but steadily being recognized as a valuable and appreciated RSE career path by organizations. However, challenges in adoption of the RSE career path continue to persist and this is especially true in the context of national labs and similar organizations. Career trajectories, professional connections, technical resources, and career development opportunities differ vastly between national labs, academia and industry. I believe in the US-RSE mission and being a part of the steering committee will help me bring RSEs at national labs and their issues to the forefront and work towards increasing their sense of belonging in the US RSE community.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I have been involved in several workshops and events organized by US-RSE and the UK’s Software Sustainability Institute over the last several years. I have served as committee member for US-RSE organized workshops such as RSE-HPC, contributed through publications, talks, white papers and organized breakout sessions/discussion groups focussing on RSE challenges in US National labs. My experience as an RSE at DOE National lab has made me conscious of the dire need of promotion of RSEs and their careers and recognition with the US National Lab space. To address this need, I spearheaded the creation of the US-RSE Working Group on RSE empowerment in national labs. With representation from major labs in the US, I am hopeful that this working group will take concrete steps towards building a sense of belonging for RSEs. In early 2021, I started a grass-roots movement for empowerment of RSEs at Argonne National Lab (ANL), with emphasis on promoting interactions among RSEs across various divisions at ANL and disseminating information about the RSE movement. My white paper, titled “Understanding the Manifold Gap for RSE Recognition in National Laboratories,” is being used to push forward lab discussions about the importance of fully supporting the careers of RSEs in DOE labs. RSEs form the backbone of the scientific community, and I am eager to continue working closely with the US-RSE community for RSE empowerment.
Joshua Teves
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
I hope to use my position on the steering committee to advance three key goals: improving processes, shepherd community discussion to define our shared vision, and securing its survival and growth. In order to improve our processes, I will lobby to make processes that are transparent, fair, and clear for the whole community as the community continues to grow and requires more management. The steering committee should shepherd community discussion to define a shared vision for the future of US-RSE which benefits the whole community. In order to secure the community’s survival and growth, I believe that it is essential to have revenue and content streams so that members can reliably draw upon the organization to fund useful efforts and create a repository of knowledge for RSEs everywhere. I feel strongly that these efforts are necessary and volunteer myself to help execute them.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
Within the US-RSE, I am currently the Chair of the Code of Conduct working group, working to create a fair and equitable method of promoting community safety. I am also the Co-Chair of the Outreach working group, where I have worked to make sure that US-RSE has a presence in various events and continues to bring in new members; just as critically, I have worked to help make sure that new members have avenues to participate. Outside of the formal organization, I currently work as a “floating” RSE attached to a research lab, where I attend to a range of responsibilities ranging from helping trainees (post-baccalaureate and post-doctoral) learn technical skills (such as programming and source control) to implementing programming solutions to research problems. I have also written some small guides tailored to researchers who need to learn technical skills, such as LaTeX for Physicists and exercises that are designed to supplement the first three chapters of the Pro Git book.
Kenton McHenry
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has supported software development within research throughout its 35 year history, with this need only growing over time to the point where software development support is now essential in pretty much every scientific field. While some broadly impactful software developments have resulted from the software work at NCSA, those that did this development were largely on their own in terms of job security, career progression, recognition, and overall support. Over the past decade I have worked to address these needs within NCSA, and in the past 4 years after being introduced to the UK and US RSE communities and realizing that these aims extended far beyond just NCSA, I began to participate in these communities. I want to contribute further as part of the US RSE Steering Committee, continuing to bring in the lessons learned at NCSA such as approaches that have worked/have not worked, help disseminate awareness of this new academic role to the many unbeknownst RSEs still scattered across academia, and help solidify RSEs as a critical role within scientific research.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I currently contribute to the US-RSE community on a number of fronts. Having participated in a number of workshops to date, I have presented on the approaches taken at NCSA over the past decade to organize ourselves, provide more robust job security, career paths for our 30+ RSEs, elevating status and recognition of our contributions on the projects we support, and more recently having worked to adopt the RSE job title at the University of Illinois just this year. At the first US-RSE workshop, I helped initiate and currently lead the Elevating RSEs working group, which aims to bring together activities to increase awareness of RSEs within organizations as well as their importance in modern day scientific discoveries. Additionally I serve on the ADSA/US-RSE Career Support Workshop steering committee, facilitating the working group that’s writing a book chapter on managing RSE groups as a resource for new RSE teams. On other fronts, I have worked to formally recognize software contributions as part of scientific research, leading the NSF-funded EarthCube’s effort to adopt notebooks as a peer-reviewed scholarly object, leading to a newly funded Sloan award to the American Geophysical Union (AGU), where I serve on the steering committee, to develop the methodology by which AGU and other publishers can begin to accept notebooks as peer reviewed publications. This will be another means by which the work of RSEs is recognized in the scholarly system. Lastly, as a product of the McNair scholars program, aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented individuals obtaining a PhD, I currently serve as a mentor within the program, working to increase diversity within not only the field of Computer Science, but also of those that would become RSEs.
Miranda Mundt
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
I come from a storied family of mathematical researchers, and I originally wanted to follow in their footsteps. After getting a degree in Applied Math, I entered a math PhD program – and quickly discovered that I wasn’t interested in pursuing a career in it. I dropped out and worked various jobs in IT service management and strategic design until I ended up at Sandia National Laboratories in a RSE role which combined my love for software and scientific research. Finally I found my home.
I want to enable others to find their place in the RSE role without taking such a winding road to get there. As part of the SC, I will bring representation from a non-traditional educational background and the national laboratory sector. I want to use this position to continue to conduct outreach and advocacy, find avenues for sustainable funding for US-RSE as an organization and RSEs as a designation, and identify beneficial ways in which that funding can support the larger RSE community.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I have been a member of US-RSE since 2020 after participating in the RSEs in HPC workshop as part of Supercomputing 2020. I joined the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion working group shortly thereafter and contributed to organizing the DEI Media Club and the DEI Speaker Series. I participated in the US-RSE Virtual and RSE in HPC workshops since then. My involvement in RSE advocacy grew from this. In early 2022, I officially started the Outreach working group (for which I act as chair) and assisted in starting the Group Management working group (for which I act as co-chair). In the former role, I organize workshops (e.g., RSEs in eScience), publish blog posts, coordinate social events and giveaways, and generally engage the wider US-RSE community in less formal, community-building ways (e.g., Slack polls).
Outside US-RSE, I act as both a researcher and practitioner. I do software engineering for scientific projects and author papers on the fundamental necessity for RSEs to advance computational science, including their needs from leadership and funding sources. I formed an RSE community of practice within Sandia National Laboratories and regularly host seminars and community meetings to promote RSEs. I frequently spread the good word about RSEs to other groups within and outside of the national laboratories.
Keith Beattie
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
As someone working as a software engineer, in both industry and for the last 20 years at a national lab, I would very much like to deepen the impact I have on how scientific software is perceived and the careers of those who use, maintain and develop it. After spending 5 years as a software and release engineer in industry then coming LBL as a Computer Systems Engineer (CSE), I was immediately struck by both the lack of rigor in how scientific software is developed and the difference in status between those on the Scientist career track vs those on CSE track. 20 years later, I now have deep experience and insights on how things can change so that scientific software, and those who develop it can become first-class citizens within the scientific community. The term RSE, now gives us a name for those who do this work, regardless of their career track, creating a community to achieve these common goals of elevating the perception, funding and career satisfaction for RSEs.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
I remember when I first heard about the UK’s Society of Research Software Engineering, it was several years ago now, well before the US-RSE had started. A set of slides were forwarded to me by a co-worked as if to say “You’re not the only one talking about this.” It was deeply satisfying to read those slides, though upset I missed the talk, it confirmed for me that I was not a lone voice in advocating for software and our careers. I felt “seen” as the kids say these days. Before that, my comments on this topic of taking software development more seriously in science was limited to lunch-time rants, but seeing that an organized group of like-minded people existed gave me the energy to advocate for this role to be included and funded as part of every new proposal. With the help of several coworkers, we have convinced a few key people within the DOE on this, and have been able to establish funding for such roles on several projects now. Along this way, I joined the US-RSE, started attending their meetings, participating in their discussions and sharing my experiences. I’ve started a local, informal LBL “CSE Cabal” to find and support RSEs here at LBL and have recently been able to lead the creation of a new formal Sustainable Software Engineering group. I’ve also joined other similar minded organizations, such as the BSSw, spoke at conferences (SIAM, CollegeVille and SC) advocating for scientific software and the unique challenges in developing it in a research context.
Lance Parsons
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
Since joining the US-RSE Steering Committee at its inception in 2019, I’ve had the pleasure to watch the community grow from a small group of eager individuals into a vibrant and inclusive community. Looking forward, I believe the US-RSE is ready to take the next step to become a more mature professional organization that can help create a true career path for research software engineers in academia, national labs, and industry.
I’m excited at the opportunity to guide the US-RSE as it grows and matures, but I’m also mindful of some of the growing pains of such a transition. As a Steering Committee, we must create the structure we need to support a sustainable organization and ensure we have the resources to achieve our goals. That means providing direction that allows us to harness the power of our diverse community. It also means making sure that our members have the space and opportunity to add their voice and make meaningful and impactful contributions.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
In addition to serving on the US-RSE Steering Committee, I co-chair two working groups. I started the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion working group to help harness the energy and creativity of our members to promote and improve diversity throughout the RSE community and I continue to serve as one of its co-chairs. I am also a co-chair of the Code of Conduct and Moderation working group. Our goal is to create a fair Code of Conduct and develop a robust response process in order to provide a safe environment for the entire US-RSE membership.
I had the privilege of attending the US-RSE Community Building Workshop in April which gave me the opportunity to meet and connect with many US-RSE members from across the country. The energy and excitement that came from that workshop has given rise to many great activities this year including the expansion of US-RSE working groups, the very popular Education and Training workshops, and the organization of a National Labs RSE group. We hope to expand on this success at our first US-RSE Conference in 2023 in Chicago.
Outside of the US-RSE, I am the manager of a small RSE group at Princeton where I work continuously to make sure my group’s contributions to research are understood and acknowledged. Building the team has given me a solid understanding of the challenges faced by RSEs and a strong appreciation of the benefits of a well defined career path and formal recognition of the contributions made by RSEs.
Aaron Holmes
Why do you want to be on the US-RSE Steering Committee?
Throughout my career, I have made it a point to contribute to the quality of software and related practices, and to focus on mentoring my peers and others. I was intrigued by papers like https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-15-S16-S15 and the problems researchers face when writing software. Two years ago I started my first job within research, where I have the opportunity to address these concerns. I bring nearly two decades of industry experience, both as an IC and manager, to Boutros Lab, where I have influenced development and architecture practices, mentored others, and contributed to ours and open source software. Recognition of what a “research SE” is, and building a community to advocate for related concerns, will improve and accelerate successful research. To this end, I contribute to scientific literature on software practices and quality in research, and I’ve taken the beginning steps to bring together RSEs at UCLA to advocate for the skills and practices an RSE is responsible for.
How do you contribute to the US-RSE Association or RSE community more broadly?
A primary responsibility for my work is defining the processes and expectations to develop high-quality software. This includes developing automation and tooling, and training researchers to meet these expectations. I also focus on mentoring the other RSEs I work with, and I manage a related working group and study group, from which new ideas and practices arise. The result of this work is the publishing of high-quality software and architecture implementations, and setting examples for other computational research labs, whom we work with to achieve the same expectations. Beyond Boutros Lab, I contribute to both literature regarding scientific software quality and practices, and to open source scientific software. Within the US-RSE, I respond to questions in the US-RSE Slack and provide suggestions for the myriad of problems we face as RSEs. I also work across UCLA to gauge interest in building a local community of RSEs, and discuss what it means to be an RSE. I am actively working to remove roadblocks to establishing a more serious US-RSE presence among my peers.