US-RSE April 2025 Newsletter
April 2025
Published: Apr 25, 2025
💜 This Month: Celebrating Our RSE Community 💜
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. USRSE’25 Conference
- 2. Shoutout to Our Volunteers
- 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)
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 16, 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
- New Journal Opportunity: authors whose papers are accepted to USRSE’25 will be invited to submit to a special issue of the journal Future Generation Computer Systems. Check our previous special issues.
- How and where to submit
- Dates for notification of acceptance and other important dates
- Venue, hotel, and travel details
Questions about the submission process? Contact usrse2025@easychair.org.
💟 2. Shoutout to Our Volunteers
April is Volunteer Appreciation Month, and we want to take a moment to send a huge THANK YOU to all of you who give your time, energy, and heart to this community 💜 Your contributions — whether it’s organizing events, leading and participating in working groups, working on the job board, sharing ideas, mentoring, advocating, or simply showing up — are what make this space vibrant, welcoming, and impactful. We couldn’t do it without you. On behalf of the Executive Director and the Steering Committee: we see you, we appreciate you, and we’re so grateful for everything you do. Here’s to you — our amazing volunteers! 🎉 👏 ⭐️
— Sandra
🛞 3. Steering Committee Updates
In March, the Steering Committee looked at financing for the US-RSE’25 conference, particularly in light of the current funding climate and the balance between organizational memberships and conference sponsorships, and tentatively approved the conference attendance fees. We followed up on the action items from our strategic planning meeting in February, assigning subcommittees for the areas of focus we identified there. We discussed the potential impacts of hiring a new part-time community manager; expect to hear more on this soon. Finally, we assisted our Executive Director in applying for (and being granted) a no-cost extension to our Sloan funding and also worked with her to debrief the first Organizational Member meeting that took place in late February.
✈️ 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 June 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.
🤝 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 (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
🗞️ 6. Community News
Community Calls
The next community call will be all about conferences and will take place on May 8th at 11AM CDT/12 noon EST. Please visit the Community Calls Website for more information and to access the registration link.
April Community Call (Past)
The April Community Call was about git branching strategies and continuous integration tools, and is available on YouTube:
👀 7. Interesting Events and Opportunities
Save the date! All of the most exciting events and opportunities in the RSE community are listed here.
😲Get Your Magical US-RSE Unicorn - Edition 2025!😲
🦄 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 '25 Volunteer Reviewer
We are seeking reviewers for Student Volunteer applications for SC25. Student Volunteers are a vital part of SC who work hard to make the conference run smoothly. The Student Volunteers program offers students an opportunity to enjoy greater involvement with and give back to the HPC community; many volunteer for multiple years and some join the SC committee after graduating.
Applications close May 31st 2025, and reviews will be due June 27th, 2025. The expected workload is approximately 6-12 applications, and they are in short essay answer format. We expect reviews to take between 2-6 hours total.
If you’re interested in reviewing Student Volunteer applications or have any questions please contact the Student Volunteer chair, Betsy Hillery at eahillery@purdue.edu or the Vice Student Volunteer chair, Suzanne Prentice at prenticest@ornl.gov by May 15th, 2025. Reach out to Suzanne Prentice on Slack if you have any questions.
🚀 Supercomputing and the Future of AI: A Virtual Exchange Program for K-12 Classes 🤖
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.
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.
🚀 Spack User Survey, 2025
📣 Calling all Spack users 📣
We are running a Spack User Survey for 2025! We’d love to get your feedback so that we can present the results next month at the first ever in-person Spack User Meeting, May 7-8!
The past three surveys were extremely useful for guiding priorities for Spack feature development, and we’ve really appreciated the detailed feedback from all of you. By filing out the survey, you can help us recognize trends in the project over time. With the 1.0 release approaching in June, now’s your chance to tell us what to do next. Please take the time to let us know how you feel! This should take ~10-15 minutes, though some questions are free-form and we do love details. Thanks in advance for your time!
The form is available here, and will stay open through Saturday, May 3.
🚀 R-RSE Affinity Group (Project 2)
Interested in designing and launching a mini-hackathon, codeathon, or other R-focused project?
Come join the R-RSE Affinity Group (R-RSE) for Project 2 of 3 that we are making available this year! R-RSE exists to increase the representation of R users in the US-RSE community and provide opportunities for members to develop R skills.
Submit your plan by June 6, 2025. More details can be found here!
📢 Developing Heliophysics Standards and Cross-science Collaborations Workshop
📅 When: August 11-15, 2025
📍 Where: Iowa City, IA
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
📢 eScience 2025
📅 When: September 15-18, 2025
📍 Where: Chicago, IL, USA
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. Tutorial submission deadline is May 5 2025!
📢 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 🏝️
📅 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
The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2025. For more information, please visit the HICSS website.
📢 Healthcare and Life Sciences (HCLS) Symposium @KGC2025
📅 When: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
📍 Where: (Hybrid) San Diego, CA, USA
💭 Curious about the most up-to-date knowledge-centric #AI use-cases in health care & life sciences (#HCLS)? If so, this event is NOT TO BE MISSED:
This year’s Knowledge Graph Conference (#KGC2025) is happy to host some of the most engaging subject matter experts from institutions like Stanford University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, EPAM Systems, AbbVie, Accenture, Schrödinger, Thoughtworks, Scripps Research, The University of Texas at Austin, Graphwise, Bristol Myers Squibb, XponentL Data, ONTOFORCE, and more, this year on May 6, 2025‼️
And for the first time, we co-created a satellite venue in San Diego, Southern California 🤗
Each ticket includes online access to the HCLS Symposium on May 6, as well as the Knowledge Graph Conference of 2025 (May 5-9). It also includes in-person networking in San Diego during May 6. Register here!
📢 DMV-RSE Meetup: Maintaining Open-Source Software
📅 When: Thursday, May 15, 5:30–7:00 PM
📍 Where: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington DC
The Delaware-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) RSE affinity group is hosting a third in-person DMV Research Software Engineers meetup on May 15 in Washington DC! Join us to learn about a new RSE topic, connect with fellow RSE professionals in the area, and make friends!
Speaker: Ryan Dale, a senior scientist and Head of the Bioinformatics and Scientific Programming Core at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will share insights about what it takes to maintain software for 14 years (and counting). Ryan’s talk will touch on various hot topics in research software engineering like journal article citations vs. actual usage, engaging with a community of users, working with GitHub and various online providers, building out your online CV, and more.
📢 Non-Government Career Paths for U.S. Federal Data Scientists
📅 When: Tuesday, May 6, 8:30 PM EDT
📍 Where: Online
rOpenSci and Openscapes are lucky to have as members many U.S. federal employees who enrich our work and community. In a time of great uncertainty for so many government workers, we want to support our members who are considering their next career steps. Join us on Tuesday, May 6 at 8:30PM EDT for a discussion and networking event for and with current and former U.S. federal government data scientists. We will be joined by co-hosts discussing their career paths in other sectors after serving at U.S. federal agencies.
Follow this link to register: rOpenSci
Have an event you want people to know about? Please send us your suggestions for the next newsletter using the #newsletters channel in the USRSE Slack!
📚 8. Featured Reads, Videos, and Podcasts
Stay informed with the latest publications, conversations, and entertaining content from the research software engineering community.
📑 Recent Publications
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E. A. Jensen, D. S. Katz, “Awareness of FAIR and FAIR4RS among International Research Software Funders,” Scientific Data, Vol. 12, Article 627, 2025. Read the article.
-
B. U. Westner, D. R. McCloy, E. Larson, A. Gramfort, D. S. Katz, A. M. Smith, A. Delorme, V. Litvak, S. Makeig, R. Oostenveld, J.-M. Schoffelen, T. Tierney,
“Cycling on the Freeway: The Perilous State of Open-Source Neuroscience Software,” Imaging Neuroscience, 2025. Read the article. -
Mourão, E., Trevisan, D., Viterbo, J., Sobral, A. P. B., da Silva, M., & Pantoja, C. E., “Investigating the Adoption of Research Software: From Success Factors to Challenges Faced by Brazilian Academic Researchers,” Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development, 13(1), 13:218 – 13:241, 2025. Read the article.
🎧 Podcast Highlights
Recent episodes from the Code4Thought podcast:
-
From Volcanoes to Open Source with John Stevenson
Listen here -
From Research to Production with Duncan McGregor
Listen here -
ByteSized RSE: AI-Assisted Coding with Liam Jianliang Gao
Listen here
Have something interesting you’d like to share? Please send us your suggestions for the next newsletter using the #newsletters channel in the USRSE Slack!
🏃 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.
- 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
These opportunities were recently posted to the RSE Opportunities page:
-
Research Software Engineer Senior/Intermediate
📍 University of Michigan, Remote
🗓️ Posted: 2025-04-24 | Expires: 2025-05-02 -
CRESCENT Specialist
📍 University of California, Davis, Davis, CA
🗓️ Posted: 2025-04-07 | Expires: 2025-04-20 -
Senior Research Software Development Manager
📍 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
🗓️ Posted: 2025-03-06 | Expires: 2025-04-25 -
Director of Research Computing
📍 Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
🗓️ Posted: 2025-03-06 | Expires: 2025-05-01 -
Research Software Engineer II
📍 Research Software Engineering (RSE) Group, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
🗓️ Posted: 2025-02-18 | Expires: 2025-04-18 -
Staff Data Scientist
📍 University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
🗓️ Posted: 2025-02-18 | Expires: 2025-04-30 -
Research Software Engineer
📍 University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL
🗓️ Posted: 2025-02-10 | Expires: 2025-04-04 -
Professional Services Developer
📍 University of Chicago - Globus, remote/flexible
🗓️ Posted: 2024-12-18 | Expires: 2025-02-28 -
Research Scientist, Associate or Assistant (two openings)
📍 School of Computing, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
🗓️ Posted: 2024-12-16 | Expires: 2025-12-16 -
Research Software Engineer I
📍 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
🗓️ Posted: 2024-11-15 | Expires: 2025-06-01 -
Quantum Architect, Simulation & Software
📍 PsiQuantum, Palo Alto, CA or remote
🗓️ Posted: 2024-09-21 | Expires: 2025-03-01
Related Openings
-
Software Engineer
📍 Scientific Computation Research Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (can be remote/flexible)
🗓️ Posted: 2024-12-04 | Expires: 2025-03-04 -
Teaching Assistant Professor - Computational Life Sciences
📍 Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
🗓️ Posted: 2024-12-02 | Expires: 2025-09-22
Other Job Boards
The following boards might also be of interest.
- 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
Have an RSE-related job posting?
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.