US-RSE March 2025 Newsletter

March 2025

newsletter March

Published: Mar 28, 2025

🎊We’re back!🎊

After a brief hiatus, the US-RSE Newsletter is back in production!

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. US-RSE Conference 2025 (USRSE’25)🏔️

Call for Submissions

We invite submissions for USRSE’25, the third annual conference from the United States Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE), to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 6-8, 2025.

Do you write code for your research? Are you curious about career paths available to computational researchers? If so, USRSE’25 is the perfect venue to showcase your work!

Whether you’re a data scientist, digital humanist, scientific programmer, software developer, or research software user, US-RSE is where people at the intersection of code and research come together. The USRSE’25 conference is your chance to connect with peers, mentors, and experts in the fast-growing world of research software. Don’t just take our word for it—100% of last year’s post-conference survey respondents said they would return and recommend the conference to others.

This year’s conference theme is “Code, Practices, and People.” Submission formats include Birds of a Feather (BoFs), workshops, short talks (including papers, talk abstracts, and notebooks), and posters. The submission deadline for all formats (except posters) is May 2, 2025. Poster submissions are due July 20, 2025.

Visit the conference website for further details including:

  • Technical topics of interest aligned with the conference theme (see last year’s program for ideas)
  • Submission formats, templates, and associated deadlines
  • How and where to submit
  • Dates for notification of acceptance and other important dates
  • Venue, hotel, and travel details

Interested in reviewing submissions? Please volunteer as a reviewer by filling out this form before April 1st.

Questions about the submission process? Contact usrse2025@easychair.org.

🤵‍♀️2. Our Executive Director Sandra Gesing was at Capitol Hill!🤵‍♀️

This week, I had the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill for a series of energizing and insightful meetings with congressional staff. The atmosphere was buzzing—with long lines to get into the buildings and not much seating beyond the occasional restroom bench! I met with staff members from the offices of Senator Adam Schiff, Senator Richard Durbin, Representative John Garamendi, Representative Mike Thompson, and Representative Ken Calvert. We had thoughtful conversations about the critical role of workforce development, nonprofit organizations’ impact, and Research Software Engineers’ growing importance. It was a great first step in getting US-RSE on their radar.

— Sandra

US-RSE Postcards handed out at the event Sandra Gesing at Capitol Hill

💼3. Steering Committee Updates💼

The newsletter may have been taking a break for the past few months, but the Steering Committee wasn’t! Starting in January, we welcomed our newest SC member Cordero Core, reviewed our SC roles, and added new internal roles for Conference Liaisons and chairs for the Awards and Community Funds Working Groups. Ian Cosden remains the Steering Committee Chair, and the full list of roles is available on the website.

January also brought many changes in the political and research climate, and the SC devoted much of our meeting time to discussing how to address these issues within the organization. Initial community feedback suggested the preferred way forward is to continue with our current policies while keeping an eye on the situation and continuing to listen to community input and concerns.

Two notable events happened in the first couple months of the year. First, in February the SC and Executive Director held our annual strategic planning meeting; you can read more about what we focused on and future plans in an upcoming blog post on the topic. Second, in support of the Organizational Membership program, a subset of the Steering Committee supported our Executive Director’s first meeting with representatives from organizational members, where we received valuable feedback from these organizations.

In addition to the above, we’ve been working on a number of other efforts. These include:

  • Collaborating with our USRSE’25 Conference Chairs in support of our annual fall conference.
  • Acting on updates from our Executive Director about ongoing work with ONet, fundraising, and our Organizational Membership program.
  • Defining and documenting processes for governance and administration of the US-RSE organization to ensure smooth transitions of responsibilities in the future.
  • Hiring a part-time student to take over some administrative tasks, including compiling this newsletter!

🎁4. Community and Travel Funds program🎁

Next Application Deadline: March 31, 2025🗓️

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.

Recently, Dr. Daniel Katz received funding to attend the deRSE25 conference in Germany. He presented a talk and a poster, and you can read more about his experience in this Community and Travel Funds report.

🗓️The next application deadline is March 31, 2025. We encourage you to apply for funding to support your community and travel needs! The application process is simple and straightforward. You can find the application form here.

🙌5. Organizational Founding Membership🙌

US-RSE envisions a future where Research Software Engineers are universally respected for advancing science, technology, and society through the transformative power of research software engineering.

We’re excited to share that the momentum around our Organizational Founding Membership continues to grow! See the list below for the current members (more are onboarding at the moment).

Organizations that join on or before November 30, 2025, will be recognized in perpetuity as founding members. Founding organizations will also lock in current membership fees through December 31, 2028. Organizational support helps sustain and expand vital community offerings, including the annual conference, monthly calls and newsletter, job board, working groups, and new resources.

Please reach out to Sandra Gesing at sandra@us-rse.org if you are interested in becoming an organizational founding member!

Premier Members

Standard Members

🗣️6. Community News🗣️

🤝New Community Partnerships🤝

We are excited to announce two new partnerships: US-RSE partners with the Research Software Alliance (ReSA) and the Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA)! The first collaboration unites research software professionals worldwide and both partnerships reinforce our shared commitment to advancing research software and data science, supporting career development, and fostering a sustainable research ecosystem.

Through these partnerships, US-RSE will join ReSA’s and ADSA’s organizations and they will join US-RSE, enhancing collaboration and knowledge exchange. By working together, we are creating new opportunities for joint initiatives, co-hosted events, and greater visibility for research software professionals and data scientists.

🥂Celebrating Our Peers🥂

This month, we’re celebrating Dr. Daniel S. Katz! In addition to his mouthful of a title as — deep breath — Chief Scientist, NCSA & Research Associate Professor, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science & Research Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences (iSchool), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (phew!), Dan was selected as a 2025 HPCwire Person to Watch. This program recognizes HPC professionals who play leading roles in driving innovation within their particular fields, making significant contributions to society as a whole.

2025 is an exciting year for HPC; the growing virtuous cycle of HPC acceleration due to the convergence of AI, Big Data, Quantum Computing, and HPC is opening new vistas for research and discovery breakthroughs. HPCwire’s 12 People to Watch are at the forefront of these trends, adapting new technology to our rapidly-changing world in order to unlock the answers to the biggest societal challenges of our time and make the impossible, possible.

You can read the full announcement and an in-depth interview with Dr. Katz by HPCwire on the HPCwire website. Congratulations, Dan, on this illustrious shout out!

☎️Community Calls☎️

The next community call will take place on Friday, April 11, from 2-3PM Eastern. We’ll be discussing git branching strategies and continuous integration (CI) tools. If you have a strong preference for a tool or workflow, good or bad experiences, or general tips to share about either one of these, we’d love to hear from you! To join the call, follow this link to get the Zoom invite.

March Community Call (Past)

The March Community Call was about Code Reviews, and is available here on YouTube.

🤸7. Interesting Opportunities and Events🤸

US-RSE has partnered with Reach The World for a webinar series for K-12 students

We have started an exciting webinar series for K-12 students in collaboration with Reach The World. Classrooms can sign up for free! We have already over 500 students registered and there is space for more! Please forward to schools, teachers, K-12 students. Don’t hesitate to contact Sandra Gesing if you have questions.

Supercomputing and the Future of AI: A Virtual Exchange Program for K-12 Classes

What makes a supercomputer “super”? What is quantum computing? What’s the difference, and how does AI (artificial intelligence) fit in?

Journey behind the headlines with an exciting new opportunity for K-12 classrooms! US-RSE has partnered with global education non-profit Reach the World to launch a free eight-week virtual exchange program that answers these questions and much more. Students will travel virtually to places like the San Diego Supercomputing Center to see firsthand how data scientists and research software engineers are harnessing today’s incredible computing power to process, interpret and draw conclusions from vast collections of data in a way that was previously unthinkable! Don’t miss this chance to inspire the next generation of innovators! Register today at bit.ly/rtwexplore.

Code Review Study

Dr. Jeffrey Carver, Dr. Nasir Eisty, and Md Ariful Malik from the University of Alabama are conducting a study to explore the code review process used by Research Software Engineers (RSEs).

As an RSE, we invite you to participate in an interview to share your experiences with the code review process. The interview will take approximately 15–20 minutes and can be conducted via Zoom or in person, depending on your preference.

Your participation is completely voluntary and confidential. Information will be kept anonymous, and with your approval, we will record the audio of the interview. Any personal information will be deleted after the interview. You may choose to withdraw at any time before or during the interview. To be eligible, you must be 18 years or older. This study has been approved by the University of Alabama Institutional Review Board.

We would greatly appreciate your participation and insights. Thank you in advance! If you are interested in being interviewed, please fill out this short information form so we can contact you to schedule an interview.

😲Get Your Magical US-RSE Unicorn - Edition 2025!😲

The 2025 US-RSE magical unicorns have officially arrived!

🦄 They Arrived as a Herd… But They’re Ready to Travel to You! 🚀

US-RSE Unicorn

They came as a herd, packed together in a carton, just like how research software engineers come together to build a stronger community. But now, these unicorns are ready to set off on their own journeys—finding new homes with RSEs, allies, and supporters like you. This year’s edition proudly wears a red shirt featuring the US-RSE logo integrated with 2025, symbolizing another year of growth, collaboration, and impact. Just like our community, these unicorns remind us that while we each have our own paths, we are part of something bigger—a movement dedicated to advancing research software and supporting those who make it happen.

By adopting a unicorn, you’re not just getting a fun desk companion—you’re also supporting US-RSE’s mission to strengthen the RSE community, advocate for recognition, and create more opportunities for collaboration.

📦 Limited supply—once they leave the herd, they’re gone!

🚚 They’ll ship for free within the US! 🚚

If you’re from another country and want to get your hands on a unicorn, reach out to us, and we’ll find out whether we can arrange shipping for you.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to own a piece of US-RSE magic and donate to get your Unicorn 2025 Edition today. This edition will be available while supplies last until December 10, 2025 ✨🦄✨

👉 https://give.communityin.org/unicorn2025?ref=ab_20w0PysS59P20w0PysS59P

🗓️Upcoming Events🗓️

eScience 2025 (Important Dates: May 5, 2025 - Tutorial Submission Deadline)

IEEE eScience 2025 (September 15-18, 2025) brings together leading interdisciplinary research communities, developers and users of eScience applications and enabling IT technologies. The objective of the eScience Conference is to promote and encourage all aspects of eScience and its associated technologies, applications, algorithms and tools with a strong focus on practical solutions and challenges. eScience 2025 interprets eScience in its broadest meaning that enables and improves innovation in data- and compute-intensive research across all domain sciences ranging from traditional areas in physics and earth sciences to more recent fields such as social sciences, arts and humanities, and artificial intelligence for a wide variety of target architectures including HPC, cloud and IoT infrastructures.

The 21st IEEE International Conference on e-Science is co-located with the 6th Global Research Platform Workshop (6GRP) in Chicago, IL, USA. Both audiences share common interests, content, and culture. Co-location provides attendees with the option to register for both events.

Find out more here

HICSS 2025

(Important Dates: June 15, 2025 - Paper Submission Deadline)

The 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) will take place at Hyatt Regency, Maui, HI, on January 6-9, 2026. The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2025. Minitracks of interest include:

  • Software Sustainability: Research on Usability, Maintainability, and Reproducibility
  • Impact of AI on Software Engineering

Open Molecular Software Foundation (OMSF) 3rd Annual Symposium 2025

Comprised of a community of contributors, academics, and industry partners, OMSF’s mission is to shed light on computational chemistry through the power of open software. The Open Molecular Software Foundation is headed to Boston, MA on Friday, May 9th, 2025 for our third symposium! We will be hearing from all of our team and projects, both storied and fresh, as we host another unforgettable community gathering.

This will be the second time OMSF gathers in Boston - we are so excited to be traveling back to such a vibrant, historical city. And with so many of our community working and living around the New England area, it’s a great place to host our conference - we hope you can come!

Registration is open and free! Whether you are along time partner, new contributor, or are just interested in learning more, you are welcome to attend. Space will be limited, so be sure grab your spot as soon as you can.

37th International Conference on Scalable Scientific Data Management

The International Conference on Scalable Scientific Data Management (SSDBM) 2025 is a premier forum for researchers, practitioners, and experts to discuss the latest advancements in scalable scientific data management. Building on the strong foundation of SSDBM, the 2025 conference broadens its scope to encompass all areas of scalable scientific data management, fostering a dynamic environment for the exchange of cutting-edge research, practical system designs, implementations, and evaluations. SSDBM 2025 will feature a single-track program to maximize interaction and discussion, including invited talks, panels, and demonstrations. Hosted by The Ohio State University, SSDBM 2025 continues its tradition of promoting collaboration and innovation in scientific data management, high-performance data analysis, and the management of distributed datasets.

The poster session provides a valuable opportunity for researchers to present ongoing work, discuss novel problems and solutions, and receive insightful feedback from the SSDBM community. Accepted posters will also be featured in a short presentation slot during the conference. Posters will undergo a light review for scope and presentation quality. The number of accepted posters is limited by space constraints. See the Call for Posters for more details.

PyOhio 2025 Call for Proposals

(Important Dates: 28 April 2025 - Proposal Deadline)

PyOhio is the free annual conference for people interested in the Python programming language, based in Ohio, and open to attendees from anywhere and with any experience level. This year’s event will be held Saturday & Sunday July 26 & 27, 2025 at the Cleveland State University Student Center in Cleveland, OH. More details about PyOhio are available at the conference website: https://www.pyohio.org/

The Developing Heliophysics Standards and Cross-science Collaborations Workshop

(Important Dates: 27 July 2025 - In-person Registration Deadline, 7 August 2025 - Virtual Registration Deadline)

The Developing Heliophysics Standards and Cross-science Collaborations Workshop will take place at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, from August 11-15, 2025. This hybrid workshop invites mission and modeling software developers in Heliophysics and related sciences to discuss potential software standards and foster collaborations to address technical challenges. The event focuses on improving Open Science practices in mission- and model-related software development across solar physics, space physics, ITM sciences, and more. Attendees from all career stages and specializations are welcome to explore best practices, standards, and opportunities for collaboration to enhance efficiency and innovation in the field.

The workshop will be hosted in Van Allen Hall on the University of Iowa campus, with no registration fee required. In-person attendance is limited by venue capacity, with priority given to mission and modeling software developers. Registration deadlines are July 27, 2025, for in-person attendees and August 7, 2025, for virtual participants. Abstract submissions are due by June 30, 2025, though mission-related software abstracts are not being solicited. For more details, registration, and abstract submission, visit https://tinyurl.com/HelioSoft2025.

📚8. Interesting Reads, Videos, or Podcasts🎥

Researchers share computational tricks at unique Los Alamos conference

Submitted by Patrick Maguire; academic/institutional login recommended

Scientists encompassing multiple disciplines and security clearance levels spent more than a month discussing how to efficiently capture both small- and large-scale phenomena in calculations: Read More.

Volume 4 of the Journal of Immaterial Science

Submitted by Tinashe Michael Tapera

The 2024 publication of your premium source for made up science is now available! This parody journal, started in 2020, is a lighthearted blog by B. McGraw, a fictional character portrayed as a software developer and researcher with humorous credentials. The journal’s tagline, “Because the answer to bad misinformation is better misinformation,” should tell you all you need to know about its comedic and fictional nature. Should Neutron Stars be Added to the Periodic Table? What is Citation Fever and how can you avoid contracting it? And did you know that Molecular Computers can run DOOM? All of this exciting non-science is ready for you to consume and trick your friends with over on the official Journal of Astrological Big Data Ecology website.

#code4thought Episodes Released this Month

Submitted by Peter Schmidt

  1. ByteSized RSE: What’s the carbon footprint of my app?

  2. ByteSized RSE: Project Management with GitHub

👋9. Get Involved👋

Volunteering with US-RSE is a great way to build your professional network and gain skills that can help you take the next step in your career. A great way to start is by joining a working group. Reach out to contact@us-rse.org or ask on Slack if you have questions about getting started.

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. Senior Research Software Development Manager: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Posted: Mar 06, 2025

  2. Director of Research Computing: Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH Posted: Mar 06, 2025

  3. Research Software Engineer II: Research Software Engineering (RSE) Group, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Posted: Feb 18, 2025

  4. Staff Data Scientist: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL Posted: Feb 18, 2025

  5. Research Software Engineer: University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL Posted: Feb 10, 2025

  6. Research Software Engineer: Carnegie Science, Washington, DC Posted: Jan 22, 2025

  7. Postdoctoral Fellow (Quantitative Modeling Group): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, CA Posted: Jan 21, 2025

  8. (Senior) Research Computing and Analytics Associate: Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA (Hybrid/Not Remote) Posted: Dec 20, 2024

  9. Professional Services Developer: University of Chicago - Globus, remote/flexible Posted: Dec 18, 2024

  10. Research Scientist, Associate or Assistant (two openings): School of Computing, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY Posted: Dec 16, 2024

  11. Postdoctoral Research Associate - Data Science and Engineering: Princeton University and NOAA GFDL, Princeton, NJ Posted: Nov 15, 2024

  12. Quantum Architect, Simulation & Software: PsiQuantum, Palo Alto, CA or remote Posted: Sep 21, 2024

  1. Evidence Synthesis Information Scientist: Virginia Tech University Libraries, Blacksburg, VA Posted: Mar 11, 2025

  2. Software Engineer: Scientific Computation Research Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (can be remote/flexible) Posted: Dec 04, 2024

  3. Teaching Assistant Professor - Computational Life Sciences: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Posted: Dec 02, 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.🙏

© US-RSE • 2021-2025 • US-RSE is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

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