US-RSE August 2025 Newsletter

⛰️ This Month: What to Expect at USRSE'25 ⛰️

newsletter August

Published: Aug 28, 2025 by Tinashe M. Tapera

Welcome to this month’s edition of the US-RSE Newsletter! USRSE’25 is right around the corner, and we’re so excited to see you there! This month, we’ll tease some of the exciting things we have planned for the conference, including a sneak peek at the program and some of the fantastic speakers we have lined up.

Conference

In this issue:

🔔 1. US-RSE Conference 2025 (USRSE’25)

USRSE25 Banner

The stage is set for our third annual US-RSE conference, themed “Code, Practices, and People”, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Philadelphia’s Marriott in Old City, October 6-8! Travel details are available on the conference website, which includes information on how to get to Philly, accessibility details, special hotel room rates (special rates available until September 12), an announcement from our collaborators at the Sustainable Horizons Institute about the Building Engagement program happening at USRSE’25, and details about financial support available to a limited number of attendees, generously provided by the Sloan Foundation (Apply here by August 29th). Philadelphia is a vibrant city with a rich history, food culture, and array of scientific and artistic highlights, so we encourage you to soak in its many attractions while you’re here.

Thank you to all who have submitted work for this conference! We received an impressive 170 submissions across all tracks, with particularly strong interest in talks and posters. This contributed to a competitive peer review process and a slate of high quality material to look forward to. As an attendee, you can expect a diverse program of interactive and educational content.

👯 Workshops & Talks

The US-RSE’25 workshops offer a diverse range of hands-on, discussion-based, and technical sessions tailored to the needs of Research Software Engineers (RSEs). This year’s topics will include workflow automation, software testing, Agile project management, user research, and sustainable data practices, and will highlight technologies like Pegasus workflows integrated with ACCESS resources and GPUs, Google Gemini AI tools, SLEAP for deep learning, CyVerse’s CACAO platform for scalable AI/ML deployment, and practical instruction on user experience research methods like semi-structured interviews. We’ll also explore broader themes such as preserving critical data repositories and recognizing software as scholarly output through a live demo of the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS).

Our invited speakers will explore key concepts and cutting-edge technologies in research software engineering including reproducibility, accessibility, sustainability, and community-driven development. Topics include FAIR compliance, multilingual translation using AI, integrating knowledge graphs for generative AI, improving documentation practices, and managing large-scale distributed data. Our speakers will also examine the role of project charters in the humanities, using notebooks as scholarly outputs, AI-augmented scientific workflows, and foundational principles of software engineering like modularity and abstraction. We’re very excited to welcome a diverse group of speakers from academia, industry, and government labs who will share their expertise and insights on these important topics.

🗞️ Papers, Posters, Notebooks, & More

This year’s accepted papers showcase the exciting growth of work in RSE, with a strong emphasis on reproducibility, sustainability, and real-world impact. These expert, peer-reviewed publications will tackle technical challenges, such as scalable testing for large simulation models, secure and reproducible containerized workflows, and GPU-accelerated generation of synthetic populations. Privacy-aware LLMs, enhancements to HPC education and infrastructure, and case studies on best practices are also going to be highlighted.

Meanwhile, the poster sessions will provide a chance for our community to showcase their applied projects and community-building efforts. Tools that improve accessibility, reproducibility, and usability are particularly exciting! Topics will range from AI’s role in code generation, to sustainability of large models, with applications ranging from pathology to climate science and education to infrastructure.

And, unique to USRSE, we have a special track for Notebooks as Scholarly Outputs. This track recognizes the growing importance of computational notebooks in research and education. Our notebook showcase will demonstrate best practices in reproducibility, documentation, and sharing, and will include topics relevant to drug discovery pipelines, the uncertainty of datetimes in code, and large scale imaging files. Lastly, keep an eye out for our Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, which will provide an informal setting for attendees to discuss shared interests and challenges in RSE.

🎤 Keynotes

We have two fantastic keynote speakers attending! On Monday, Dr. Reed Maxwell (Princeton University) will present his groundbreaking work on simulating groundwater at continental scales by integrating machine learning with physics-based hydrologic models. His team’s CONUS2.1 and HydroFrame platforms aim to create a digital twin of the full U.S. hydrologic cycle—reducing computational costs while capturing the nonlinear interactions between groundwater and surface water systems. His talk will highlight the development of ML emulators, the use of simulation-based inference, and how this fusion of data and models enables more efficient and scalable hydrologic forecasting.

On Tuesday, Dr. Myra Cohen (Iowa State University) will address the growing challenges of ensuring software correctness, especially as AI becomes more deeply embedded in research workflows. Her keynote will focus on system-level testing for scientific software—where uncertainty, complexity, and domain specificity make traditional validation approaches difficult. Dr. Cohen will explore how exactness is often unattainable and how we can adapt our testing strategies to maintain confidence in research outcomes. Drawing on her expertise in configurable systems and interdisciplinary approaches, she will offer practical techniques and a thoughtful perspective on what it means to build trustworthy research software in an era increasingly shaped by AI.

😃 We Look Forward to Seeing You in Philadelphia this October!

There’s still time to register! Whether you’re a research software engineer, 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.

Visit the conference website for further details including, including how to sign up for volunteering opportunities.

This year’s conference is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Globus, Los Alamos National Laboratory, SHI International Corp., IBM, and Dell.

🔊 2. Executive Director’s Update

Great News about Funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation!

Thanks to a successful proposal led by Executive Director Sandra Gesing, US-RSE has secured a new $249K grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (December 2025–2027). This renewed investment strengthens US-RSE’s sustainability and energizes the work of the Executive Director, in close collaboration with the Steering Committee, to advance advocacy, funding opportunities, and long-term growth of the community.

Connect with Sandra at Upcoming Events

Sandra Gesing will be representing US-RSE at several events in September, and she would love to connect with you if you are attending any of them! She will be on the panel “Human Resources and Motivation” at the OECD Event Access to research software: Opportunities and challenges on September 8 in Paris, France. From September 9-12 she will be at the RSECon in Warwick, UK. She will be co-organizing a co-located event on September 10 around AI and the RSE workspace - RSE perspectives on AI code generation tools: Open discussion and drafting of a position statement! Back in her hometown in Chicago, she will participate and present at the eScience Conference from September 15-18.

Looking ahead to October, she will host office hours at our USRSE’25 conference. You can sign up here to reserve a 15-minute slot. If the timing doesn’t work out, don’t worry - she will also be around during the conference sessions and social events. Please feel free to say hello anytime!

Lastly, in November, USRSE will have a dedicated booth at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC25) in St. Louis, MO, USA, from November 17-22. Sandra will be there along with other USRSE members, and we are looking for volunteers to help out! If you are attending SC25, please let us know!

🛞 3. Steering Committee Updates

In August the Steering Committee discussed our annual budget, including additional funding we’ve received from the Sloan Foundation and how to best use this to cover salaries, conference expenses, operating expenses, and Executive Director travel. We also explored ways to make the processes related to our fiscal sponsorship work more smoothly. We reviewed the work our Interim Project Manager has been doing related to organizational memberships and discussed ways to recognize our organizational members and make these memberships more appealing going forward. We heard from the conference chairs for USRSE’26 about their progress in exploring potential venues and dates, and we looked at how to celebrate International RSE Day this year in light of the fact that it falls the day after our fall conference. Finally, we reviewed updated eligibility criteria for Steering Committee nominees proposed by our governance subcommittee.

🤝 4. 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 (six 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

Basic Members

✈️ 4. 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 September 30, 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.

🗞️ 6. Community News

Community Calls

We took a break this August for the summer, but we will be back in September! Stay tuned for details.

👀 7. Interesting Events and Opportunities

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

The 2025 US-RSE magical unicorns have officially arrived!

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

📚 8. Featured Reads, Videos, and Podcasts

📑 Recent Publications

  • L. Paganini, “Research Open-Source Software: Supporting Small Communities with Technical and Social Aspects,” FSE Companion ‘25: Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering, pp. 1258–1261, 2025. Read the article.

  • V. Churavy, M. Giordano, “Julia – HiRSE Summer of Programming Languages,” HiRSE Seminar Series, 2025. Watch the talk.

  • S. Farshidi, K. Bennin, Ö. Babur, J. Sallou, A. Kassahun, et al., “Advancing Research Software Engineering with AI: A Research Framework,” preprint, 2025. Read the preprint.

  • C. R. Prause, R. Reiners, S. Dencheva, “Empirical Study of Tool Support in Highly Distributed Research Projects,” 2010 5th IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering, IEEE, 2010. Read the article.

Editor’s note: This is a much older article, but it was recently brought to our attention and is relevant to distributed RSE teams, as it demonstrates that RSEs have been thinking about and addressing the challenges of “software for research” for quite some time.

  • A. Mittal, “AI-Augmented DevSecOps Pipelines for Secure and Scalable Service-Oriented Architectures in Cloud-Native Systems,” 2025 IEEE International Conference on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), IEEE, 2025. Read the article.

  • A. Mittal, V. Venkatesan, “Practical Integration of Large Language Models into Enterprise CI/CD Pipelines for Security Policy Validation: An Industry-Focused Evaluation,” 2025 IEEE International Conference on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), IEEE, 2025. Read the article.

🏃 9. Get Involved

US-RSE Working Groups:

🧑‍💼 10. Recent Job Postings

Other Job Boards

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

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