US-RSE June 2024 Newsletter

June 2024

newsletter June

Published: Jun 24, 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:

1. 2024 Community Awards Results

Congratulations to our outstanding winners!

We are thrilled to announce the inaugural winners of the US-RSE Community Awards, who have demonstrated remarkable dedication, creativity, and commitment to the RSE community, and US-RSE organization. Their contributions have made a significant difference and we are grateful for their tireless efforts!

šŸ† Impact Award: Daniel S. Katz, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Daniel S. Katz is a pioneer in research software engineering, promoting the field and its professionals. He co-founded US-RSE and led working groups that established software citation standards, ensuring recognition for RSEs and their software in journals. Katz also co-founded the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS), providing a platform for crediting research software work, and co-led the development of FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) principles, promoting transparency and accessibility. Additionally, he co-founded and co-led the US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI) and Research Software Alliance (ReSA), supporting the growth and sustainability of research software engineering. Katz has also co-organized numerous events and workshops, and has written extensively on research software engineering (RSEng), giving numerous talks. His work has helped shape the field, promoting recognition and value for research software and those who develop and maintain it. Through his tireless efforts, Katz has made a profound impact on the RSE community, both domestically and internationally.

šŸ† Excellence in Service Award: Christina Maimone, Northwestern University

Christina Maimone is a dedicated champion of the US-RSE organization, providing exceptional service and leadership that has been instrumental in its growth and success. As a founding member and Steering Committee member from its inception through 2023, Maimone played a pivotal role in shaping the associationā€™s identity, governance, and processes. Her tireless efforts included defining election processes, establishing internal resources, creating branding guidelines, and contributing to funding proposals. Maimone also organized events, workshops, and panels, fostering connections with related organizations and the broader research community. Her dedication to US-RSE has been unwavering, continuing to support the community manager and working towards a new membership management system to ensure the associationā€™s continued growth. Through her outstanding service, Maimone has made a profound impact on the US-RSE community, and her contributions have been invaluable to its development and success.

About the Awards: The US-RSE Community Awards are a new initiative launched in 2024 to celebrate the outstanding achievements of individuals who have made a lasting impact on the Research Software Engineer community. These prestigious awards recognize excellence in two categories: Impact and Excellence in Service. Each winner will receive an award certificate, recognition on the US-RSE website, a $250 gift card as well as formal recognition at the annual US-RSEā€™24 conference.

Celebrating Excellence: We are pleased to acknowledge the exceptional individuals who have made significant contributions to the Research Software Engineer community. Their dedication, innovation, and leadership have made a lasting impact, and we are honored to recognize their achievements with these awards.

A New Tradition: The US-RSE Community Awards inaugurate a new tradition of recognizing excellence within the RSE community. We look forward to continuing this tradition, acknowledging outstanding contributions and celebrating the achievements of individuals who have made a positive impact in the field.

Nominations for the 2025 awards are expected to open in February 2025. More information can be found on the US-RSE awards webpage.

2. Community and Travel Funds - June 30 Deadline

Donā€™t miss out on the opportunity to apply for funding through the Community and Travel Funds program. This program aims to support and strengthen the US-RSE community by fostering diversity, connecting individuals, and promoting career growth in the field of Research Software Engineering. Funding is available for both community-focused initiatives and individual applicants, with grants ranging from $100 to $10,000 per proposal. Whether youā€™re organizing local RSE events, attending conferences to share your work, or seeking professional development opportunities, this program can provide the financial support you need. Applications are accepted quarterly and evaluated based on their potential impact, alignment with the US-RSE mission, and the qualifications and involvement of the applicants.

The next application deadline is June 30, 2024. Donā€™t miss the deadline to submit your proposal and take advantage of this incredible opportunity to advance your career and contribute to the RSE community. See the Community and Travel Funds page for more details.

3. Membership Benefits

The US-RSE leadership team (Executive Director, Community Manager, and Steering Committee) have been strategizing about how to bring additional membership benefits to you, our valued members. We are excited to bring a new benefit, one that we hope is the first of many new tangible benefits for US-RSE members!

Weā€™ve negotiated/partnered with the Agile Alliance to bring discounted rates to their upcoming conference. Agile Alliance is a global non-profit membership organization founded on the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. They support people and organizations who explore, apply and expand Agile values, principles, and practices. There is some clear overlap with US-RSE with goals in regard to agile development and material that can benefit people in agile software development and/or agile management.

Agile Alliance has their Agile 2024 conference from July 22-26th, 2024 at the Gaylord Texan. As US-RSE member you can get $200 off the registration fee with this code specifically for US-RSE AA21US-RSE!

Do you have suggestions for other organizations that could be potential US-RSE partners? Or other member benefits that youā€™d like to see? If so email sandra@us-rse.org.

4. US-RSE Conference 2024 (USRSEā€™24)

Registration is open!

Registration is open!

Conference Date

October 15-17, 2024, Albuquerque, NM (Early bird registration ends on September 1, 2024).

Travel Arrangements

Two hotels within a short walking distance are available with a special rate for those attending US-RSEā€™24. Are you getting ready and making travel arrangements? Please consider booking at one of these convenient locations! Visit the Travel page for codes, booking links, and more https://us-rse.org/usrse24/attend/travel/.

5. Community News

Community Calls

July Community Call

The next community call will be on Thursday, July 11, 12pm ET/11am CT/10am MT/9am 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.

June Community Call (Past)

The June Community Call was all about US-RSE Working Groups.

RSE Empowerment in National Labs

The next RSE Empowerment in National Labs working group meeting will be July 16 at 1pm ET/ 12pm CT/ 11am MT/ 10am PT. Please note that this date is one week earlier than normal! We will be holding a discussion about the COLABS proposal with David Bernholdt from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The meeting is open to all US-RSE members who are interested. You can find a link to the meeting in the bookmarks section of the #national-labs Slack channel.

International Council of RSE Associations

Regular meetings of the International Council of RSE Associations are starting up again! After a lull for the past year, and with the coordination help of ReSA (Research Software Alliance), representatives of the US-RSE will meet as part of the Intl Council to discuss and share topics on the common and unique challenges faced by RSEs across the world. Through these discussions and networking, we hope to share effective strategies in supporting RSEs while strengthening our own by learning of the successes at other international RSE associations. Feel free to reach out to Keith Beattie or Rinku Gupta via Slack (your US-RSE International Council representatives) with any questions you have about the International Council of RSE Associations.

Member Spotlight - Josh Teves

Josh Teves

Background

Hi! My name is Josh.

My career in research software engineering started by total accident. In college, while pursuing a Bachelorā€™s degree in physics, I did research with an atmospheric physicist. We used instruments in the field to measure raindrop sizes, but the software that these instruments came with was terrible. For example, the field site frequently lost power and, due to the bad software, when the instrument rebooted it would not correctly synchronize the clock. We needed to get some analysis software to look through and figure out when that would happen so that we would know where to truncate data that would eventually be analyzed and used to make scientific inferences. I spent a lot of time doing this and I really liked it. I liked it so much that I decided to start a PhD program. Unfortunately, I hated doing the PhD so I left my program and began looking for relevant jobs.

Research Software Engineering

My wife was also looking for jobs and came across a posting where they needed someone who had experience with MATLAB. She encouraged me to apply for the position since I had prior experience with it. I applied for the position and got my first research software engineering role helping to improve software. The project I worked on eventually led to a future role at the NIH where I had the opportunity to do even more of what I loved. This included working on challenging intellectual projects and building solutions to complex problems. I appreciate being able to go beyond data gathering to build comprehensive products for people to use.

In 2021, I officially heard about the Research Software Engineering field through a colleague and ended up joining the US-RSE Outreach Working Group. Currently, I am a jack of all trades and R&D Computer Scientist at Sandia National Labs.

US-RSE Involvement

A past project that I enjoyed working on as a member of US-RSE is an article that I helped write in 2022 about RSEs at national labs. The article was for the Computing in Science and Engineering Special Edition. My colleague, Miranda Mundt, suggested that we write an article as a group. It was ultimately a great experience to see people at other national labs, learn about the differences between labs and universities, and consider how the impact is different. The group was coordinated well and we also received good reviews and feedback on the article.

Launch of Pilot Recognition Program

In an effort to foster and support a spirit of appreciation within our community, we are exploring different ways to recognize members! The Community Managerā€™s Slack Activity Recognition Pilot Program acknowledges members who are active in various ways in our Slack community. Data was pulled in February 2024 and various criteria were applied in order to generate a final list of awardees. Awardees were notified in June and asked to fill out a form with their preferred contact information as well as preferences for swag. These individuals will be receiving a recognition package within the next 1-2 months. As community manager, Iā€™m happy and proud to be part of such a vibrant community. Please donā€™t hesitate to reach out to me with any suggestions and topics!

6. Interesting Events and Opportunities

šŸ’„Call for BoF Panelists at US-RSEā€™24

We are looking for panelists for a US-RSE 2024 Birds of a Feather conversation, ā€œRSEs in domain-specific ecosystems,ā€ about how the experiences of research software engineers differ by domain. Our conversation will engage questions such as:

  • How do differences in research domains impact the training needs of RSEs?
  • What types of institutional support and infrastructure are needed to support RSEs and scholars in the humanities and social sciences vs. other domains?
  • How might the DH RSE experience benefit and inform RSE roles in other domains?

For more details and to indicate your interest in being a panelist, please complete this nomination form by July 15, 2024.

šŸ’„Get Your Magical US-RSE Unicorn - Edition 2024!

Would you like to support US-RSE and get a magical unicorn? Our magical unicorn - Edition 2024 is here! https://give.communityin.org/02OaKa?ref=ab_5CNhbc

šŸ’„A Survey on Refactoring Practices in the Development of Scientific Software

The FORCOLAB at the University of Toronto (UofT)is conducting a research study on understanding the refactoring practices and challenges in open-source scientific software. The main objective is to better support refactoring tasks during scientific software development. Please share your refactoring experiences in open-source scientific software by completing this survey.

šŸ’„Survey on Software Environments for Heliophysics

For RSEs in helio/solar physicsā€“ IHDEA (International Heliophysics Data Environment Alliance) has formed a working group to define common heliophysics tools/software in python which the community may one day be able to use and base their software off of. They are collecting some initial feedback about the kinds of software folks in the community are using this short survey: https://forms.gle/DumtthpGytnhWpCk6.

šŸ’„Center for Open-Source Research Software Stewardship and Advancement (CORSA)

The DOE-funded CORSA project has been collecting guidance, documents, examples, templates for open-source software projects, such as on governance, roadmaps, contributing, code of conduct, DEI, licenses, etc. Please feel free to add additional items, as PRs or new issues.

šŸ’„Faculty Hackathon 2024

The FacultyHack@Gateway2024 will involve 10 Computer Science or science discipline area faculty.

Faculty teams will adapt High-Performance Computing (HPC) tools for use in their courses. They will leave with ā€œready-to-goā€ course outlines, supporting data, and identified resources. Each team will be assigned a technical mentor to help with this process. Teams completing all four (4) challenges receive a $1000 honorarium.

šŸ’„Survey on Generative AI for Scientific Software Development

Dr. Elle Oā€™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.

šŸ’„Survey to understand mentorship needs

Dr. Reed Milewicz from Sandia National Laboratories is conducting a survey on mentorship. The survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete.

šŸ’„Survey to understand how RSEs consider cybersecurity when writing software

Calling all research software engineers! Weā€™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.

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

šŸ’„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.

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

Upcoming Events

šŸ’”US-RSE Booth at the PEARC24 Conference

We will have a booth at PEARC24! Please join us at the conference or in Providence, RI between July 21-25. Additionally, we have a #pearc24 Slack channel for discussions and announcements for the conference.

šŸ’”Call for Abstracts: Research Software Engineers in HPC

To be held as part of SC24, Atlanta, GA, USA and online.

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. Participants will hear about successes and challenges that RSEs and RSE groups have experienced, and discuss ways to increase awareness of RSE opportunities and improve support for RSEs. Please visit the website to stay informed about key dates https://us-rse.org/rse-hpc-2024/.

šŸ’”2024 European HTCondor Workshop (Autumn 2024)

The 2024 European HTCondor Workshop will be held from Tuesday 24th September to Friday 28th September, at Nikhef in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

šŸ’”The Journey to STRUDEL: How We Came to Embrace User Experience in Scientific Ecosystems

This talk will detail the journey of using user experience research over the last decade to develop software products and inform research approaches.

šŸ’”DiveRSE - Supporting EDI within the RSE community

Join this conversation about Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) in the RSE community. Ella Kaye (Research Software Engineer, University of Warwick) and Malvika Sharan (Senior Researcher ā€“ Open Research at the Alan Turing Institute and co-lead of The Turing Way) will converse about their experiences in/with the RSE community, as well as both the challenges and successes theyā€™ve encountered when working to improve EDIA. They will discuss the importance and difficulties of community-building and why it matters from an EDIA perspective.

DiveRSE is a series of talks and related activities including discussion and panel sessions designed to support and raise awareness of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) challenges and successes within the research software community.

šŸ’”Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Tutorials for Open Source Projects

View the schedule and register for free tutorials throughout August!

šŸ’”Summer School in Open Science + Research Software Engineering

In July 2024, the US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI) will be hosting a five-day workshop on open science and research software engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

šŸ’”The accomplishments of the Exascale Computing Project

Supercomputing Spotlights is a new webinar series featuring short presentations that highlight the impact and successes of high-performance computing (HPC) throughout our world. Presentations, emphasizing achievements and opportunities in HPC, are intended for the broad international community, especially students and newcomers to the field.

šŸ’”OSS Licensing for Research and Education

This is a short course that introduces researchers (doctoral students, postdocs, staff researchers and PIs) to the essentials of open-source software (OSS) licensing for research and educational purposes. The course duration should be about 3 hours when taught live, and we will also produce an online version for self-study.

Running List of Conferences and Events

Previously shared conferences and events.

7. Interesting Reads, Videos, or Podcasts

8. Steering Committee Update

Much of the Steering Committeeā€™s effort in May 2024 was focused on working with the Executive Director to develop a budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year and discuss hiring a fundraising consultant to guide future funding efforts. The budget is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks, and weā€™ll be hiring a consulting firm to advise our Executive Director on fundraising. We also had a dedicated meeting to review the Executive Director and Community Manager roles, now that they have existed for roughly half a year, including whatā€™s been going well and where we can make some improvements in communication and processes going forward. In addition, we gave final approval to the Community Managerā€™s pilot Slack recognition program, discussed the latest rounds of grant awardees with the Community Funds Committee, finalized our first General Chair for the US-RSEā€™25 conference, and heard feedback from the Community Awards Committee about how the first yearā€™s selection process went and what could be improved next year.

9. Get Involved

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:

10. Recent Job Postings

These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Opportunities page:

  1. Computational Research Scientist III: Henry M Jackson Foundation, Frederick, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 20, 2024]
  2. Computational Research Scientist III - PDM: Henry M Jackson Foundation, Frederick, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 20, 2024
  3. Computational Research Scientist II - PDM: Henry M Jackson Foundation, Frederick, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 20, 2024
  4. Computational Research Scientist II - FEA: Henry M Jackson Foundation, Frederick, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 20, 2024
  5. Computer Systems Engineer: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA (hybrid possible)ā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 18, 2024
  6. Research Software Developer: National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, ILā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 17, 2024
  7. Sr. Application Developer / Application Developer C: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PAā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 14, 2024
  8. User Experience Researcher: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, on-site, hybrid, full-time telework or remoteā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 14, 2024
  9. Research Software Engineer II (RSEII), Scientific and High Performance Computing: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH ā€“ hybrid 2 days/week on campusā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 10, 2024
  10. Research Software Engineer, Computational Neuroscience and Behavior: Columbia University, New York City, NYā€ƒPosted:Ā Jun 05, 2024
  11. Postdoctoral Appointee - Topology/Shape/Inverse Optimization: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM (remote possible)ā€ƒPosted:Ā May 29, 2024
  12. DevOps Platform Engineer: Navteca in support of NASA JSC, Greenbelt, MD, Houston TX, Remoteā€ƒPosted:Ā May 29, 2024)
  13. Postdoctoral Appointee - Software Engineering Research: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NMā€ƒPosted:Ā May 28, 2024
  14. Postdoctoral Appointee ā€“ Machine Learning for X-ray Science: Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL USAā€ƒPosted:Ā May 16, 2024
  15. Research Scientist, Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TNā€ƒPosted:Ā May 09, 2024
  16. Research Scientist II, Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TNā€ƒPosted:Ā May 09, 2024
  17. Research Scientist III, Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TNā€ƒPosted:Ā May 09, 2024
  18. Research Software Engineer: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Apr 30, 2024
  19. Research Software Engineer II: Princeton University, Princeton, NJā€ƒPosted:Ā Apr 17, 2024
  20. Associate/Research Software Engineer/Senior: The National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, ILā€ƒPosted:Ā Apr 12, 2024
  21. Research Software Engineer with UI/UX Concentration: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MDā€ƒPosted:Ā Feb 27, 2024
  1. Research Data Analyst Associate: Northwestern University, Chicago, ILā€ƒPosted:Ā Apr 30, 2024

Other Job Boards

The following boards might also be of interest.

  1. Research Software Engineering Opportunities in other associations/societies
  2. Software Carpentries Job Opportunities
  3. Academic Data Science Alliance Jobs
  4. High Performance Computing (HPC) Jobs from hpc.social

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.

Ā© US-RSE ā€¢ 2021-2024 ā€¢ US-RSE is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

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