Outreach Working Group

Overview

This working group is currently looking for new chairs and is INACTIVE until otherwise stated.

The US-RSE Outreach Working Group is dedicated to broadening US-RSE’s engagement with the research software engineer (RSE) and wider computational science and engineering (CSE) communities. We strive to raise awareness of US-RSE as an association and RSE as a professional designation through engagement with industry, academia, national labs, and students.

Those interested in contributing to this goal are encouraged to join our bi-weekly virtual meetings. To get involved, visit the #wg-outreach channel on the US-RSE slack or contact the Outreach working group list.

Co-chairs: INACTIVE

Work Products

The official US-RSE Outreach working group began in 2022. The group has produced and hosts the following media, documents, and events.

Developer Stories

Created by Vanessa Sochat, the Developer Stories podcast aims to cast a spotlight on the differing backgrounds and paths professionals have taken.

The podcast has existed since September 2019 and is looking for more volunteers for interviewees, hosts, and audio editors.

Conference/Workshop Participation and Organization

US-RSE has had a presence at several conferences and workshops throughout its lifetime and continues to find new venues. A non-exhaustive list of previous or upcoming events:

Speaker Series

We are participating in or spearheading two different speaker series, starting in late 2022.

Funder Series

A subgroup of the US-RSE Outreach Working Group is organizing a Funder Series, a speaker series aimed at bringing representatives from funders (e.g., NSF, NIH) to speak to members of US-RSE. These funders will bring essential information about opportunities, strategies, and starting points for finding funding.

Upcoming Presentations

The funders talk series is now on hiatus until 2025.

Past Presentations

Supercomputing Spotlights

The SIAM Activity Group on Supercomputing (SIAG/SC) is starting a webinar series entitled Supercomputing Spotlights to inspire the next generation of students. The webinar features short TED-style presentations that highlight the impact and successes of high-performance computing (HPC). Initial info about the series is available via https://siag-sc.org.

US-RSE was asked if they would be interested, in addition to other international members of the RSE community, in exploring the concept of co-sponsoring a session in this series. SIAM/SC is pausing the series during the northern summer and plans to resume in the northern fall, aiming for monthly cadence with regular RSE/SC occurrences.

We are aiming to create a small international RSE group to work on this that would suggest and work with potential speakers for these quarterly sessions (where the other monthly sessions would not be this group’s responsibility).

Please keep an eye out for future announcements regarding this series.

SWAG Giveaways

In August 2022, the Outreach Working Group hosted the first ever US-RSE Free SWAG Giveaway. This giveaway was available and open to all US-RSE members.

US-RSE Swag Options

28 winners were selected to receive tumblers and backpacks, and all entrants were sent official US-RSE stickers.

Outreach Material Cultivation

Many US-RSE members have already conducted outreach as part of their daily lives. To promote reusability, the Outreach Working Group has created a US-RSE Outreach Materials Google Drive where anyone can submit their materials, articles, blog posts, etc., for use and reference by other US-RSE members.

Please submit your own content in the appropriate folder and list it in the main manifest document!

Rapid Interviews

We are actively recruiting US-RSE members to submit short self-recorded interviews for use on our website and at other events, such as Supercomputing 2022.

We will send some free swag to those who participate in this! You can choose from either a US-RSE official sticker or lapel pin.

We ask that interested members answer a short series of questions, including:

  • Tell us about you - where do you live, where do you work, what are your interests, what do you currently work on?
  • What are you working on right now that is exciting?
  • How did you hear about RSEs and US-RSE?
  • Why did you join US-RSE?
  • Describe your work as an RSE or RSE ally in one sentence.
  • Where would you like to see the RSE profession in 10 years?

If you are interested in submitting a rapid interview, please refer to our instruction guide.