US-RSE September 2025 Newsletter
⛰️ This Month: Get Prepared for USRSE'25 ⛰️
Published: Sep 27, 2025 by Tinashe M. Tapera
US-RSE’25 is finally here! For those making the pilgrimage to sunny Philadelphia in a few short days, we’ve compiled a handy task list that ensures that you’ll be prepared and ready to make the most of this year’s exciting conference! Read on for more…
In this issue:
- 1. USRSE’25 Conference
- 2. Executive Director’s Update
- 3. Steering Committee Updates
- 4. Organizational Founding Membership
- 5. Community and Travel Funds
- 6. Community News
- 7. Interesting Events and Opportunities
- 8. Featured Reads, Videos, or Podcasts
- 9. Get Involved
- 10. Recent Job Postings
🔔 1. US-RSE Conference 2025 (USRSE’25)
Heading to USRSE’25 in Philadelphia? We’ve put together a “Know Before You Go” guide to make sure you’re ready for a smooth and engaging conference experience. From registration and meals to socials events, accessibility guides, and networking tips, everything you need to plan your trip is in one place!
👉 Read the full Know Before You Go Guide
Before You Arrive
- Review the full program online; a printed overview will be at check-in
- Pack layers (Philly weather: 50–70°F, hotel rooms may run cool)
- Bring laptop, chargers, and business cards
Onsite Logistics
- Registration: Sunday evening through Wednesday morning at the Marriott Old City
- Meals: breakfast, lunch, and evening receptions provided
- Tuesday social event: aboard the historic Moshulu ship
- Quiet rooms available for downtime
Connectivity & Networking
- Conference Wi-Fi and charging stations available
- Join the US-RSE Slack and use #usrse25 on social media (X, Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn)
Accessibility & Support
- Registration desk will be available to assist with accessibility requests, health, safety, and Code of Conduct issues
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.
USRSE’25 is possible thanks to our Platinum and Gold Conference Sponsors: Dell Technologies, SHI, Schmidt Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Globus, Los Alamos National Laboratory, IBM, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
🔊 2. Executive Director’s Update
Connect with Sandra at Upcoming Events
Sandra 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 September the Steering Committee largely focused on issues related to finances and the annual conference. As we’re nearing the end of our initial Sloan Foundation grant funding, we looked at what areas of our budget have some room for additional spending, where we need to reallocate funds to cover expenses that were higher than anticipated, and how this all affects our budget for the coming year. We also went over the budget for the USRSE’25 conference and lessons learned from this for the USRSE’26 conference, as well as finalizing SC involvement and meetings at this year’s conference. We got an update from our Executive Director about her work to get Research Software Engineer included as a job title with the Department of Labor Statistics, and we started planning for this year’s Annual General Meeting and Steering Committee election.
🤝 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
✈️ 5. 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 Community and Travel Funds Program is not currently accepting applications. We hope to obtain more funding in the future. Please check back on the program page here.
🗞️ 6. Community News
🥳 The results are in for the 2025 US-RSE Community Awards! 🥳
US-RSE Technical Excellence
Recognizes outstanding technical contributions that materially advance research software engineering practice. This award celebrates “the things RSEs do that are normally ignored.”
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Student/Early Career: Manoj Kumar Cebol Sundarrajan
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Professional: JAWS Team - Daniela Cassol, Mario Melara, Elais Player-Jackson, Ramani Kothadia, Setareh Sarrafan, Seung-Jin Sul, Nicholas Tyler
US-RSE Community Impact and Leadership
Honors leadership and service that amplifies the reach, visibility, and growth of the RSE profession. This award focuses on people who step beyond their own codebases to promote belonging, engagement, and awareness.
- Student/Early Career: Daniel Madren
- Professional: Rinku Gupta
Visit the Awards page to read about our winners, and please join us in congratulating them!
📢 “Research Software Engineering: Discovering and Bridging Knowledge Gaps” is out now in IEEE Computing in Science & Engineering: https://s.dlr.de/cise-special-issue-rseng.
This special issue collects work that has been started during the Dagstuhl Seminar 24161 “Research Software Engineering: Bridging Knowledge Gaps” (April 2025): https://dagstuhl.de/24161.
Over 5 papers, it lays out how Research Software Engineering and Software Engineering Research should collaborate in the future for mutual benefit. RSEs can leverage state-of-the-art methods and tools from software engineering research to create better software that enables better research. SERs can gain insights into an understudied area of SE practice, and develop new research questions and agendas that produce the methods and tools required for state-of-the-art software engineering in research contexts. The issue has been guest-edited by our community members Daniel S. Katz, Caroline Jay, Lars Grunske and Stephen Druskat.
Community Calls
The next community call will be on Friday, October 10, 2025, 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT
Topic: Informal RSE Hangout
On October 10, it’s time for our monthly community call! This one falls right after USRSE’25, so many of us will be just returning from an exciting week of travel, talks, and connections. Instead of a formal program, we’re keeping things light — come join us for a relaxed virtual hangout with fellow RSEs, swap conference highlights, and simply unwind together. No agenda, just open conversation and community connection! And if you weren’t able to attend the conference, this is a great chance to hear impressions and stories directly from your colleagues.
Registration link: Zoom
👀 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!
👉 https://give.communityin.org/unicorn2025?ref=ab_20w0PysS59P20w0PysS59P
🚀 Supercomputing and the Future of AI: Watch the Full Virtual Exchange Series On-Demand! 🤖
Our exciting webinar series for K–12 classrooms, presented in partnership with Reach the World, has officially wrapped! Over the past ten weeks, more than 840 students joined us to explore the fascinating world of supercomputing, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. Now, all episodes are available to watch on-demand along with companion journal articles that bring the topics to life for students, educators, and curious minds of all ages. Together with Reach the World, US-RSE created this virtual exchange to offer a behind-the-scenes look at how research software engineers and data scientists use cutting-edge computing to tackle real-world challenges.
Learn more at ReachTheWorld.org, and please reach out to Sandra Gesing with any questions
🚀 Contribute to the future of DEI in USRSE
The US-RSE DEI Working Group is seeking input from the community! We’re exploring new ways to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion within our organization and would love to hear your ideas. What would make US-RSE a more inclusive and welcoming space for you and others?
Let’s work together to make US-RSE a place where everyone feels they belong.
If you have suggestions, big or small, please share them in the #dei-discussion Slack channel or reach out directly to the DEI Working Group. Your feedback will help guide our future initiatives and ensure they reflect the needs of our diverse community.
🚀 Scientific Programming Survey by UMichigan
Are you a scientist who programs?
A survey study led by a University of Michigan team is being conducted about scientists programming practices, experiences, and tool usage. The survey should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete. Participants may opt-into a raffle of five $100 cash awards.
Scientists in any research area, career track, and stage (including student research assistants) are invited.
Please follow this link to participate, and questions can be directed to code-for-science@umich.edu
🚀 Open Innovation Sprint
Research software is the engine driving modern science and discovery. From analyzing complex datasets to simulating intricate phenomena, it’s an indispensable part of the research lifecycle. Yet, understanding and quantifying its impact remains a significant challenge for researchers, project contributors, institutions, and funders alike.
How do we effectively measure the reach and influence of these vital tools? How can we incentivize better practices around software citation, metadata, and sustainability?
To tackle these shared ecosystem challenges head-on, NumFOCUS’s Open Source Science Initiative launched the 2025 “Impact of Research Software” Open Innovation Sprint!
Running from March through late 2025, this sprint is a collaborative, fast-paced initiative bringing together researchers, engineers, designers, community organizers, and users. Our goal is to produce actionable, community-driven outputs – open source tools ready for immediate use and contribution.
This inaugural sprint, focused on measuring research software impact, is inspired by efforts such as the CZI 2023 Software Impact Hackathon, is led by NumFOCUS’s Open Source Science Initiative, and is made possible through collaboration with the Research Software Alliance (ReSA), Open Source Collective and ecosyste.ms, and the Sprint’s contributors and their organizations.
🚀 Help shape the future of the Research Computing and Data workforce!
Take the 2025 Research Computing and Data Workforce Survey — it’s anonymous, takes ~15 min, and your input will directly inform CaRCC programming and community support efforts. The CaRCC RCD Professionalization Working Group developed this survey to better understand and support the professionals powering research computing and data across institutions in the United States and Canada. Your voice matters. Let’s better understand and advocate for the professionals who power research computing and data. Be sure to share with those at your home institution too!
🚀 USRSE @ The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
To be held as part of SC25, St. Louis, MO, USA (where US-RSE will have a dedicated booth) and online, Sunday, November 16, 2025, 8:30 am - 5:00 pm CST (UTC-6)
=== Overview ===
Research software engineers (RSEs) are critical to the impact of HPC, data science, and the larger scientific community. They have existed for decades, though often not under that name. The past several years, however, have seen the development of the RSE concept, common job titles, and career paths; the creation of professional networks to connect RSEs; and the emergence of RSE groups at universities, national laboratories, and industry. 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. We’ll 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.
The workshop will be highly interactive, featuring breakout discussions and panels, as well as invited addresses and submitted talks.
🚀 PromptRSE: Demo a New LLM Tool with us!
Calling all RSEs! The Code World No Blanket research group invites you to share your feedback on a new tool called PromptRSE and provide insights on how large language models (LLMs) are used in your research software development. By trying out the demo and completing a short survey, you’ll help shape tools designed to empower RSEs and promote best software engineering practices in research. As a thank-you, you’ll have a chance to win one of ten $25 Amazon gift cards!
🚀 Applications Open for the 2026 Better Scientific Software Fellowship
Do you have a great idea on how to make scientific software BETTER and want to share it with the community? The Better Scientific Software (BSSw) Fellowship program fosters and promotes practices, processes and tools to improve developer productivity and software sustainability of scientific codes. Each 2026 BSSw Fellow will receive up to $25,000 for an activity that promotes better scientific software through a publicly available artifact. Activities can include organizing a workshop, preparing a tutorial, or creating content to engage the scientific software community.
📢 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 59
📅 When: January 6-9, 2026
📍 Where: Hyatt Regency, Maui, HI
The 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) will take place at Hyatt Regency, Maui, HI, on January 6-9, 2026. Minitracks of interest include:
- Software Sustainability: Research on Usability, Maintainability, and Reproducibility
- Impact of AI on Software Engineering
Find out more about the conference and register at HICSS 59.
📢 Gateways 2025 Annual Conference
📅 When: Tuesday, October 28 – Thursday, October 30, 2025
📍 Where: The Oneida Hotel, Green Bay, Wisconsin
Gateways 2025 bridges the connection between science and gateways, bringing together developers, researchers, and users to learn, share, and collaborate. Hosted annually in the U.S., the conference features a robust program of keynotes, short papers, panels, posters, tutorials, demos, and open access proceedings.
This year’s event will also offer a special journal publication opportunity for all accepted papers.
Whether you’re a seasoned gateway developer or just getting started, Gateways is a great way to expand your skills and network in a welcoming, interdisciplinary environment.
Learn more and get involved. Want to help shape the event? Email help@sciencegateways.org to join the planning committee.
📢 Sustainable HPC Software: A Maintainer's Perspective
📅 When: October 15 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EDT
📍 Where: Online
This webinar explores the challenges of stewarding scientific computing software ecosystems and maintaining the longevity of high-performance computing (HPC) software. Using firsthand examples from over five years of experience as maintainer of the Kokkos project, we will discuss key issues that impact software sustainability. The talk will cover managing critical vulnerabilities like the “bus factor,” which highlights the risks of a single point of failure. We’ll also address the “silent drag” of technical debt, which slows development and hinders innovation, and “Hyrum’s Law,” which illustrates how hidden dependencies can break user workflows with every change. By sharing anecdotes and practical strategies for mitigating these risks, this presentation aims to provide valuable insights for developers, maintainers, and project leads working to build a future of sustainable, reliable, and impactful HPC software.
Presented by Damien Lebrun-Grandié (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Registration here: Zoom
📢 Distribits 2025
📅 When: October 23–25, 2025, 9:00–17:00 CET
📍 Where: Haus der Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany (with livestream on the DataLad YouTube Channel)
Distribits returns for its second meeting, bringing together researchers, developers, and community members to advance open, distributed, and reproducible science. The program includes: - Two days of conference talks and discussions (Oct 23–24) - A hands-on hackathon (Oct 25) - Opportunities to connect with the DataLad and git-annex communities - Sessions on reproducibility, big data, research data management, and open science
Registration is free but required: Register here · Watch online via the DataLad YouTube channel
📢 Workshop: Building Scientific UIs with STRUDEL and AI Assistants
📅 When: October 23, 2025, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM PT
📍 Where: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Spend the day with the STRUDEL team learning how to design and prototype scientific web applications using the STRUDEL Design System, React, VSCode, and AI coding assistants. This hands-on workshop will cover: - Prototyping research software user interfaces - Integrating generative AI tools into your workflow - Improving usability and user experience - Building a working prototype and receiving expert feedback Light breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided, with opportunities to network and collaborate throughout the day.
Space is limited — Register here by October 3, 2025 to secure your spot.
📚 8. Featured Reads, Videos, and Podcasts
📑 Recent Publications
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G. O’Brien, “How Scientists Use Large Language Models to Program,” CHI ’25: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–16, 2025. Read the article.
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D. Mittal, “A Study for Application of Decision Making Model in a Public Organization,” Spectrum of Operational Research, vol. 3, no. 1, 2025. Read the article.
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W. F. Godoy, T. Melnichenko, P. Valero-Lara, W. Elwasif, P. Fackler, R. Ferreira Da Silva, K. Teranishi, J. S. Vetter, “Mojo: MLIR-Based Performance-Portable HPC Science Kernels on GPUs for the Python Ecosystem,” WACCPD Workshop at IEEE/ACM SC25: The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, St. Louis, MO, Nov 16–21, 2025. Read the article.
- D. S. Katz, E. A. Jensen, M. Barker, “Understanding and advancing research software grant funding models,” Open Research Europe, vol. 5, p. 199, Jul 25, 2025. Read the article.
📝 Blog Posts
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D. Katz, M. Hosseini, S. Edmunds, “Guest Post – Code Plagiarism and AI Create New Challenges for Publishing Integrity,” The Scholarly Kitchen, Aug 28, 2025. Read the post.
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Stack Overflow, “Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025,” Stack Overflow Insights, 2025. Read the report.
- AI Darwin Awards Team, “AI Darwin Awards 2025 — Celebrating Spectacularly Bad AI Decisions,” AI Darwin Awards Blog, 2025. Read the post.
🏃 9. Get Involved
US-RSE Working Groups:
- Code Review
- Community Calls
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Education and Training
- Group Management
- Mentorship Program
- Outreach
- RSE Empowerment in National Labs
- Testing
- User Experience
- Website
🧑💼 10. Recent Job Postings
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Geospatial and Remote Sensing Data Specialist
📍 Polar Geospatial Center, St. Paul, MN
🗓️ Posted: 2025-10-16 | Expires: 2025-10-22 -
Applications Support Analyst 1
📍 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-10-14 | Expires: 2025-12-31 -
Senior Research Software Engineer
📍 Purdue University, Rosen Center for Advanced Computing, West Lafayette, IN
🗓️ Posted: 2025-09-30 | Expires: 2025-11-30 -
Early Career CFD / Physical Oceanographer
📍 Fluid Numerics, Hickory, NC
🗓️ Posted: 2025-09-24 | Expires: 2025-10-31 -
Data Engineer - Bioinformatics
📍 Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-09-08 | Expires: 2025-11-03 -
Computational Scientist
📍 Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-08-28 | Expires: 2025-12-28 -
Associate Computational Scientist
📍 Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-08-28 | Expires: 2025-12-28 -
Lead Research Software Engineer
📍 Princeton Language and Intelligence Initiative, Princeton, NJ
🗓️ Posted: 2025-07-30 | Expires: 2026-01-30 -
Data scientist
📍 University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-07-13 | Expires: 2025-12-31 -
Research Scientist, Associate or Assistant (two openings)
📍 School of Computing, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
🗓️ Posted: 2024-12-16 | Expires: 2025-12-16
Other Job Boards
- Research Software Engineering Opportunities in other associations/societies
- Software Carpentries Job Opportunities
- Academic Data Science Alliance Jobs
- High Performance Computing (HPC) Jobs from hpc.social
- SGX3 and SGCI Science Gateways Community Jobs 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