US-RSE March 2024 Newsletter

March 2024

newsletter March

Published: Mar 28, 2024

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.

In this issue:

Community and Travel Funds program

Part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant for US-RSE has been delegated for the Community and Travel Funds program. Members of US-RSE can apply for funds for community or individual purposes for event costs, get-togethers, travel funding, and more.

The next application deadline is March 31, 2024. See the Community and Travel Funds page for more details.

Community Awards program

In 2024, US-RSE is proud to unveil a new initiative aimed at honoring individuals who have significantly contributed to the Research Software Engineering community. This initiative is designed to recognize their dedication and support in furthering the mission and objectives of US-RSE.

The US-RSE Community Awards are intended for individuals actively advancing the mission of US-RSE. There are two awards available. The Excellence in Service Award acknowledges outstanding dedication to advancing the US-RSE mission. The Impact Award recognizes notable contributions and influence within the RSE profession.

For additional details on how to nominate someone, or yourself, please visit the Community Awards page. Nominations will close March 29, 2024.

US-RSE Conference 2024 (USRSE’24)

Conference Updates

Deadline Extension

The deadline for Workshops, Tutorials, and BoF submissions for US-RSE’24 have been EXTENDED to Monday, April 1! Consider submitting your ideas!

Dates and Venue Announcement

Our next conference will be Tuesday, October 15 through Thursday, October 17, at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, NM. View the US-RSE conference website for more details and to stay up to date on upcoming events!

Call for Submissions

We invite submissions for the second annual US-RSE Conference to be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 15-17, 2024. The theme of this year’s conference is “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A celebration of all that RSEs have done for computing in the past, in the present, and in the future.” Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • History of the RSE movement
  • RSE impact
  • Efforts to expand the RSE movement
  • Research data management
  • Software engineering approaches supporting research
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for RSEs and in RSEng
  • Training and workforce development
  • Maturing and expanding the RSE profession
  • Accepted abstracts will be placed on the website ahead of the conference.

Important Dates

  • Submissions open: Monday, February 12
  • BoFs, Workshops, and Tutorials: Monday, April 1
  • Papers and Notebooks: Monday, May 20
  • Posters and Talks: Monday, June 3

Steering Committee Recap

In January 2024, the Steering Committee welcomed three newly elected Steering Committee members and determined roles for 2024. As part of this process, we discussed how some roles will be changing and responsibilities shifting with the addition of our Executive Director (Sandra Gesing) and Community Manager (Sophia Anyatonwu). In addition, a new role of Deputy Treasurer was added to serve as a backup for and share some work of the Treasurer. Ian Cosden remains the US-RSE Steering Committee Chair, and the complete list of roles is available on the website.

In late February, the Steering Committee held its annual strategic planning meeting to talk about priorities for the coming year as well as long-term plans. A blog post with full details will be coming soon, but some of the highlights of conversation included 5-year visions for US-RSE, exploring potential membership models for the organization, recognizing and supporting working group volunteers, and balancing differing opinions and viewpoints within the organization.

The topics identified in the strategic planning meeting have informed the discussions at subsequent meetings. Current priorities include a formal membership program for organizations interested in supporting US-RSE, piloting a recognition program for active Slack community members, identifying fundraising opportunities, and better understanding our current membership. Many of these efforts are being led by Sophia and Sandra, who regularly attend Steering Committee meetings.

Community News

SC24 - Women’s History Month Highlight

Our own Sandra Gesing was featured for SC24 - Women’s History Month to share about her journey to HPC. Read more about her experience here.

Member Spotlight

We are seeking content for a new section of the newsletter that will highlight both newer and seasoned members throughout the year. Please send Sophia Anyatonwu, US-RSE Community Manager, a summary (through Slack or email sophia@us-rse.org) related to one of these topics:

  • What you are currently working on/contributing to in the US-RSE community
  • What you are actively planning on participating in this year as a member of US-RSE
  • Past projects/work you have participated in through US-RSE that you are proud of
  • Resources from the US-RSE community that you are starting to apply (or have already applied) professionally or personally
  • A summary of how you landed a job through US-RSE’s job board and who was involved, or a similar item about how you helped someone else land an interview or job, perhaps in collaboration with that person

Member Snapshot

We are working on creating a set of US-RSE Member Snapshots for social media. Please send Sophia Anyatonwu, US-RSE Community Manager, summary text and a picture through Slack or email sophia@us-rse.org.

DEI Working Group

Getting involved

To get involved with the DEI working group, visit the #dei-discussion channel on the US-RSE slack, or contact the DEI working group list.

Suggestions for media, other resources (such as guides), speakers, and future activities can also be submitted through this form: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Suggestions

RSE Empowerment in National Labs

Community building in your organization guide

Members of the US-RSE National Labs working group recently teamed up to write an article called, “Getting Started with the RSE Movement within your Organization: A Guide for Individuals”.

This guide is all about helping folks who want to jump into the RSE movement within their own organizations. We’ve added some practical steps and tips to help you make a difference by bringing RSEs together and building a strong community. Hopefully, the community will find it useful!

Working group participation in upcoming conferences

A number of working group members will be participating in conferences this coming April in which they’ll be sharing the experience of being an RSE working in national labs. These include a panel discussion at Sandia National Laboratories Sustainable Scientific Software Conference (S3C), and presentations at the UCAR Improving Scientific Software Conference (ISS) and the Salishan Conference on High Speed Computing.

User Experience Working Group

The UXWG strives for regular, productive meetings that accommodate multiple schedules. We meet on the 3rd Tues of odd months at 2 PM ET/1 PM CST/11 AM PT/12 PM MT, and, on even months, the 3rd Wed at 4:30 PM ET/3:30 PM CST/1:30 PM PT/12 PM MT.

Join us on Slack in the #wg-ux channel.

Code Review Working Group

The goal of this working group is to build a community of RSEs who are interested in code review. The working group will provide a forum to gather resources related to code review, discuss the use of code review in research software project, and seek help in conducting code reviews.

To get involved, visit the #wg-code-review channel on the US-RSE slack.

Community Calls

April Community Call

The next community call will be on Friday, April 12, 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT.

Call for Presenters

If you are interested in presenting, please get in touch with Julia Damerow and Abbey Roelofs in the #communitycalls channel or by messaging them directly.

March Community Call (Past)

The March Community Call was all about RSEs!

Speakers presented on a range of positions held by RSEs, the challenges and benefits of different types of roles, and brainstormed how US-RSE can help RSEs in varying situations.

Community Manager Office Hours

One weekday and one weekend time slot will be set aside each month for US-RSE members to chat with Sophia about membership matters. Members may also provide updates on how they are applying technical tools and other resources they have learned about from the US-RSE community. Additional information and relevant resources can be found on the US-RSE Slack in the #community-manager channel.

RSE Group Leaders’ Network (RSE-GLN)

Do you lead an RSE group? Do you want to talk to others about the challenges of leading and managing projects, people, and resources? Join the RSE-GLN!

US-RSE Funders Talk Series

The US-RSE hosted a series of conversations with funders for 1) RSEs to learn about funding opportunities and review and other processes, 2) RSEs to ask questions of the funder, and 3) funders to ask questions and learn about RSEs.

Visit the Funder Talk Series for more information and links to past presentations.

If you have suggestions for future talks, please contact Dan Katz.

This series is now on hiatus through the end of 2024. We’ll start thinking about possible next steps & future talks for 2025 later this year.

Interesting Events and Opportunities

Survey on Generative AI for Scientific Software Development

Dr. Elle O’Brien at the University of Michigan will be conducting studies about how scientists are using generative AI tools as part of their scientific software development.

Survey assignment on Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) in research software

The primary objective of this survey assignment is to explore the prevalence of graphic user interface (GUI) creation within research software development. Other objectives include:

  • Determine the desired user-system interactions of research software projects.
  • Investigate the reasons for the creation or lack thereof of GUIs for projects.
  • Explore the importance of user experience considerations within research software projects.

Survey to understand mentorship needs

Dr. Reed Milewicz from Sandia National Laboratories is conducting a survey on mentorship. This survey seeks to answer questions such as:

  • What is mentorship like in software development contexts?
  • What matters most in mentoring relationships?
  • Do different groups (like women and LGBTIQ people) report similar or different priorities in mentorship across their careers?

The survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete. Participants will be entered into a raffle for a $100 gift card raffle. Three winners will be selected. Email addresses will be discarded after the raffle to protect anonymity.

Survey to understand how RSEs consider cybersecurity when writing software

Calling all research software engineers! We’re exploring how security is perceived in our community, and we want to hear from you. Whether you think about security every day or rarely think about security, your insights are invaluable to us. To participate, you will complete a survey that takes 20-30 minutes.

We will ensure your privacy during and after the survey process. The survey is anonymous.

Your participation in this research study is voluntary. If you are interested, after completion of the survey you can enter a drawing for up to three $100 Gift Cards. The entry for the drawing is separate from the survey to ensure your answers remain anonymous. If you decide to participate in this study, you may quit the survey at any time and your partial responses will not be included in the study. However, only those who complete the study are eligible for the drawing.

If you are willing to participate in this study, please click here.

If you have any questions regarding the research study, please contact Matthew Armstrong (maarmstrong3@crimson.ua.edu) or Dr. Jeffrey Carver (carver@cs.ua.edu).

This research has been reviewed according to University of Alabama procedures for research involving human subjects. If you have any questions about your rights as a participant in this study or any concerns or complaints, please contact the University of Alabama Office of Research Compliance at 1-877-820-3066.

Survey to better understand code review practices of RSEs

Dr. Jeffrey Carver, Dr. Nasir Eisty, and Md Ariful Malik of the University of Alabama are conducting a study to understand the practices, impacts and barriers of code review techniques for RSEs.

As an RSE, we are soliciting your participation in our study. Taking part in this study involves completing a web survey that will take about 15 minutes. This survey contains questions about your previous experience with the code review process.

Your participation is completely anonymous and voluntary. You are free not to participate or stop participating any time before you submit your answers. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate in the study and the survey.

If you are willing to participate in this study, please click here.

If you have any questions regarding the survey, please contact Dr. Jeffrey Carver (carver@cs.ua.edu) or Dr. Nasir Eisty (nasireisty@boisestate.edu).

This research study has been approved by the University of Alabama Institutional Review Board.

On behalf of The Science of High-Performance Computing group at The University of Texas at Austin, a brief (5-10 minute) survey is being conducted to learn about your experience with dense linear algebra software. Your responses to the survey will in part help them plan for the future. The survey will close at 23:00 UTC on March 31, 2024.

Upcoming Events

Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature

Celebrating pioneering women committed to advancing technology for a better society. Applications now open until May 31st, 2024, 23:59 (UTC).

Who is it for?

Early to mid-career women researchers working in academia, at a research institution, or an affiliated university spinout are invited to apply.

Why Apply?

Winning this award unlocks a substantial prize and creates avenues to accelerate your research, elevating your professional journey to new heights.

What you’ll receive!

$250,000 prize. Every recipient of this award will be granted a significant prize to advance their research endeavors. Additionally, your work will be showcased on Nature.com, amplifying its impact and fostering collaborations on a global scale.

Gateways 2024 Call for Participation

Gateways 2024 will take place Tuesday, October 8 - Thursday, October 10, 2024 at the Best Western Plus GranTree Inn in Bozeman, MT. Tutorials will take place in the two weeks before the conference online.

Presentation and Publication Options:

We invite the submission of papers and abstracts related to science gateways. All contributions will be subject to standard peer review on quality and relevance. This will apply to tutorial sessions, papers, panels, posters, demos, and BYOP (Bring Your Own Portal). Tutorial sessions, papers, panels, posters, and demos will be published openly accessible in Zenodo. Please note that authors of papers will be invited to submit an extended and updated version of their paper for a special issue journal on science gateways.

  • Tutorial submissions are due May 3, 2024.
  • Paper, demo, and panel submissions are due May 27, 2024.
  • Poster and BYOP - Bring Your Own Portal submissions are due July 29, 2024.

Read the Full Call for Participation!

IEEE eScience Conference Series: Call for Proposals

The eScience Steering Committee invites proposals to host the eScience conference in 2025, 2026, and 2027.

IEEE eScience is the preeminent venue for research in computational and data-intensive research, cyberinfrastructure and distributed infrastructure, and applications in scientific research. eScience encompasses all fields of research and addresses all stages of the research lifecycle, from formulation of the research questions, through large scale simulations and data analytics, scientific discovery, up to long-term sharing, reusing, and reapplying of the results, data as well as the relevant tools, processes and knowledge. Since 2005, eScience has brought together a vibrant community of researchers and practitioners spanning computer science and domain sciences (https://www.escience-conference.org/about/).

More details and proposal requirements: https://www.escience-conference.org/about/escience-cfp.pdf.

Deadline: April 30, 2024.

HICSS-58 Call for Papers

Software Sustainability: Research on Usability, Maintainability, and Reproducibility Minitrack

This minitrack is dedicated to exploring the critical intersection of software usability, sustainability, and reproducibility, acknowledging the expanding role of software in shaping research across diverse domains. The three concepts usability, sustainability and reproducibility are interconnected with each other and cover a wide range of application areas. They affect all layers of the software process – from enabling reproducing experiments via an easy user interface to using containerization for application portability. Such concepts are also relevant in the building of Science Gateways (also known as virtual laboratories or virtual research environments), which by definition serve communities with end-to-end solutions tailored specifically to their needs. The mini-track will focus on the broad spectrum of submissions that deal with complex scenarios such as containerization, strategies for long-lasting software, usability and user interface issues, handling data curation and provenance and more.

Paper Submission Deadine: June 15, 2024 11:59 pm HST

GlobusWorld 2024

GlobusWorld brings together researchers, systems administrators, developers and IT leaders from top research computing centers, national labs, federal agencies, and universities around the world. Please join this year’s conference in Chicago on May 7-9. View the program and agenda here: https://www.globusworld.org/conf/program.

2024 Software for the NASA Science Mission Directorate Workshop

The 2024 Software for the NASA Science Mission Directorate Workshop will be hosted at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., USA from Tuesday, May 7 to Thursday, May 9 of 2024. The workshop aims to explore what the current opportunities and challenges are for the various categories and lifecycle stages of software that are relevant for activities funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate. This includes increasing the visibility of software being developed and to ignite wider collaborations on those challenges between centers, missions, data repositories, and sciences.

INTERSECT Bootcamp ‘24

The INTERSECT Research Software Engineering Bootcamp will be a 4.5 day intensive hands-on workshop focusing on practices that will help research software developers improve the quality, reproducibility, and sustainability of their software.

Travel funding is available! For more information or to apply, visit https://intersect-training.org/bootcamp24-announce/.

Please share with anyone who may be interested! Questions? Reach out to Ian Cosden and/or Jeff Carver.

DH2024 Mini-conference “DH Inside Out”

This year in August, the Digital Humanities Conference 2024 (DH2024) will be held at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, USA. DHTech, a community of people developing digital humanities software, will hold a mini-conference at DH2024 themed “DH Inside Out”. Typical DH conference presentations are focussed on the research with a slight nod to the technical details; the mini-conference wants to flip that format and dive more deeply into the technical aspects of the work, while still keeping it in context of the research and domain specifics. To that end, DHTech invites submissions of interest to the people who work on the technical aspects of DH projects. Please see the full call on the DHTech website for instructions on how to submit presentation proposals.

Running List of Conferences and Events

Previously shared conferences and events.

Interesting Reads, Videos, or Podcasts

US-RSE Financials

From a financial perspective, 2023 was an exciting year for US-RSE. We were awarded a two-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and switched fiscal sponsors. We are very grateful to the Open Collective Foundation (OCF) that was our fiscal sponsor until last spring. However, with the awarded grant our needs changed and we are now a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives (CI). CI gives us the structure and resources to hire staff such as the Executive Director and the Community Manager, accept donations and reimburse members for expenses they incurred on behalf of US-RSE. The community funds possible via the Alfred P. Sloan grant are also awarded via CI.

The majority of the grant from the Sloan Foundation is budgeted to pay for our new Executive Director and Community Manager. Besides that we’ve budgeted money to support staff travel, the US-RSE conference, fund community activities through our new Community and Travel Fund program, and fund smaller items such as code of conduct trainings for our code of conduct committee members. CI charges 10% of our income for providing resources, infrastructure, and support (trust us when we say we make good use of those resources). Switching from OCF to CI turned out to been an unexpectedly complex change and it has been a very steep learning curve. We appreciate our members’ patience as we navigate the world of non-profit regulations and guidelines.

Get Involved

There are lots of ways to get involved with the US-RSE community. Of course, you can join us on Slack. 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.

New guidance was recently released on how to create new Affinity Groups and Working Groups. If you see an unmet need in the US-RSE community, we encourage you to create your own group!

As always we thank everyone who is already contributing for their help in shaping and growing the organization.

US-RSE Working Groups:

Recent Job Postings

These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Opportunities page:

  1. Software Engineer II: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO Posted: Mar 20, 2024
  2. Full-Stack Web Developer: University of Michigan LSA Technology Services, Ann Arbor, MI (remote eligible) Posted: Mar 05, 2024
  3. Research Software Engineer: University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL (fully remote eligible from the US) Posted: Mar 04, 2024
  4. Research Software Engineer with UI/UX Concentration: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Posted: Feb 27, 2024
  5. Software Engineer: Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA), Caltech, Pasadena, CA Posted: Feb 27, 2024
  6. Software Engineer: Arts and Humanities Research Computing (DARTH), Harvard University, Hybrid Posted: Feb 23, 2024
  7. Associate Director, Research Software Engineering: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Posted: Feb 19, 2024
  8. Software Engineer: Stanford University, Stanford, CA or remote Posted: Feb 16, 2024
  9. IS Senior Programmer - HPC Scientific Programmer: Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH (Ohio Residents Preferred) Posted: Jan 31, 2024
  10. AI Research Scientist: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN/hybrid Posted: Jan 26, 2024
  11. Software Scientist: Open Free Energy/Open Molecular Software Foundation, fully remote Posted: Jan 24, 2024
  12. Postdoc - Syracuse University Open Source Project Office: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY Posted: Jan 09, 2024
  13. Software Engineer/Developer: Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (on-site) Posted: Dec 19, 2023
  14. OSTP Software Developer: Kitware, Clifton Park, NY Posted: Nov 30, 2023
  15. Researcher and Engineer Positions in Advanced Wireless, Open RAN, and Rural Broadband: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa Posted: May 18, 2023
  1. Assistant Professor, Teaching Track, in Software Development and Design: University of Washington, Seattle, WA Posted: Feb 12, 2024

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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