US-RSE January 2026 Newsletter

This Month: Welcome to 2026! 🎆

newsletter December

Published: Jan 10, 2026 by Tinashe M. Tapera (Author & Editor), Sandra Gesing (Editor), Ian Cosden (Editor)

As we open up for another fantastic year for the US-RSE community, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you for being part of this journey. Your participation and contributions made 2025 a wonderful year of growth, learning, and collaboration across the research software engineering landscape. Better still, 2026 offers even more opportunities to connect, share, and innovate together.

two engineers at a whiteboard with a laptop

In this issue:

🔔 1. New Year Reflections

The New Year is an opportune time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to what lies before us. In case you missed it, US-RSE Executive Director Sandra Gesing shared her thoughts on the year that was 2025 and what to expect in 2026. As a community, we have numerous conferences in the pipeline to look forward to, with special mention to the upcoming USRSE’26 happening this Fall! We hope to see you all there, but more importantly, we look forward to engaging with you in 2026 through our various working groups, community calls, and other exciting community initiatives. Remember that no matter your level of involvement, real-world-experience, or background and aspirations, there is a place for you in US-RSE. If you’re writing code, building software, or supporting research through software, you are an RSE and we welcome you to engage with us!

To read Sandra’s full thoughts from last year, check your email! And if for some reason you aren’t yet a member, consider joining us in 2026 to help continue building this vibrant community » Join US-RSE

In 2026, stay connected and keep up with the latest news, events, and community highlights by following US-RSE on social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-rse

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/us-rse.bsky.social

Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@us_rse

X: https://x.com/us_rse

We hope you had a restful and joyful holiday season, and we look forward to another amazing year together! 😊🌟

😲 2. USRSE’26 Conference

📣 Mark Your Calendars for USRSE’26! 📣

We’re thrilled to announce that USRSE’26 will be held at the San Jose Marriott from October 19-21, 2026 in San Jose, California!

🌟 Call for Volunteers and Committee Members 🌟

We’re looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help organize this exciting event. If you’re interested in contributing, please fill out this form. Committee selection will happen this month, so if you’re interested in playing a key role in the conference organization, make sure to apply soon! If you’re interested in one of the chair roles, please submit your form before January 11, 2026. For more details about the roles and responsibilities, check out our organization page.

📧 Join Our Mailing List 📧

Want to stay updated on all things US-RSE? Join our mailing list to receive direct news about all US-RSE conferences. Sign up here.

💬 Have Questions? 💬

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the organizers at usrse26-conference@us-rse.org.

📅 Save the Date 📅

More details about the conference program, registration, and travel information will be coming your way in the months ahead. Stay tuned at us-rse.org/usrse26!

Looking forward to seeing you all in San Jose!

🛞 3. Steering Committee Updates

We’re happy to announce the new Steering Committee members for 2026! Please join us in welcoming:

  • Keith Beattie, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2024-2026
  • Jeffrey C. Carver, University of Alabama, 2019-2027
  • Cordero Core, University of Washington, 2025-2026
  • Ian Cosden, Princeton University, 2019-2027
  • Julia Damerow, Arizona State University, 2021-2026
  • Alex Koufos, Stanford University, 2024-2027
  • Miranda Mundt, Sandia National Laboratories, 2023-2026
  • Abbey Roelofs, University of Michigan, 2024-2027
  • Pengyin Shan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2026-2027

Congratulations and thank you to all the new and returning members! You can find their bios and statements on the committee page.

💎 4. Annual General Meeting Recap

Our Annual General Meeting for 2025 took place on December 4th, 2025. If you missed it, you can find the recording below! Highlights include:

  • Outlining US-RSE’s purpose and growth as we aim to build a professional community, advocate for the RSE role, provide resources, and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in US-RSE.
  • Reviewing US-RSE’s community activities, such our website, job board, monthly newsletter and community calls, Slack channels, various subcommunity events, and social media presence.
  • Discussing funding opportunities, such as the transformative grant from the Sloan Foundation and US-RSE’s operation as a project under Community Initiatives.
  • Reviewing leadership roles and volunteers, such as our Executive Director, the Steering Committee, and the numerous opportunities for community members to get involved through working groups, organizing committees, or community engagement.
  • Celebrating 2025’s achievements and impact, including the 2025 conference in Philadelphia attracting over 300 participants, our community and travel funding program awards to numerous recipients.
  • Promoting our advocacy and outreach, engaging with organizations like NSF, the US Department of Labor, the OECD, and K-12 students.
  • Celebrating the success of our organizational membership program, including over 20 founding members.
  • Acknowledging our numerous Working Groups and Regional Groups.
  • Addressing future plans and priorities for 2026, including growing individual and organizational memberships, sustaining and growing the annual conference, pursuing grants and other funding sources, continuing advocacy efforts, and further understanding the impact of AI on research software engineering.
YouTube Video Thumbnail

🤝 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 June 30, 2026, 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

Executive Director’s Interview on NAIRR Pilot

The NAIRR pilot, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) & SGX3, has evolved from concept to a real shared AI research platform that connects researchers, educators, industry partners, and national labs. Our Executive Director, Sandra Gesing, highlights how this 2-year-old collaborative infrastructure is lowering barriers for teams that once couldn’t access powerful computing, tools, and expertise to fuel creativity, discovery, and possibility.

Read the full interview on govtech.com: https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/2-years-into-nairr-pilot-shared-infrastructure-boosts-ai-innovation

Social Media Coordinator’s Presentation at iPRES2025

At iPRES 2025 in Wellington, I shared how many library and archive developers are already doing RSE work even if it’s not called “RSEng”, supported by the US-RSE travel funds. I reflect on why US-RSE should welcome these preservation-minded professionals and how our connection with the National Library of New Zealand is building a bridge across communities.

  • Pengyin Shan, Senior Research Software Engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, & US-RSE Social Media Coordinator

Read the full article here!

Impact of US-RSE Community and Travel Funds on Data Carpentries

Building on the success of last year’s first Data Carpentry workshop to ever be offered in Israel, generous funding from the US-RSE Community and Travel Funds enabled the success of a Data Carpentry Metagenomics workshop in October 2025, at Tel Aviv University in Israel. The two-day, hands-on workshop was made possible by a partnership among the US-RSE, the Carpentries, the Israel Research Core Facilities, the George Washington University Libraries, Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) and ELIXIR.

A key goal of the workshop was to empower local instructors to take on more of the teaching responsibilities. In addition to last year’s instructors Dan Kerchner, a Senior Software Developer and Bioinformatics PhD student from George Washington University in Washington, DC and Dr. Dan Ben-Avraham, head of Israel’s ELIXIR node and head of the WIS Mantoux Institute for Bioinformatics, major sections covering Bash shell and a metagenomics analysis pipeline were taught this year by WIS bioinformaticians Dr. Dayana Yahalomi and Dr. Amir Szitenberg, with support from Dr. Avital Sarusi-Portuguez.

The diverse group of 24 learners from 11 institutions included MS and PhD students, postdoctoral and staff researchers in the life sciences, as well as international students and postdocs from India, Brazil, and the U.S. conducting research at institutions across Israel. Hands-on learning included project data organization for metagenomics, cloud computing, Bash shell, R coding, and applying these skills to process real-world whole-genome sequencing data through a series of command-line analysis tools to determine relative proportions of different taxa of bacteria from samples taken from Cuatro Ciénegas, a unique ecological environment in Mexico. Research computing best practices were emphasized throughout. Participants reported increased skill levels, better understanding of how coding contributes to research reproducibility, higher confidence in applying their new software engineering skills to their research, and a desire for more learning opportunities of this type. We look forward to building on the success of the US-RSE-sponsored workshop and the enthusiasm for more workshops of this type in Israel to further develop RSE skills, connections, and community.

Photos may be accessed at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tv68B2n8cGuvtJAn0BttJ5UcYFQyhu8-?usp=sharing

Community Calls

Since we last checked in, we’ve had three community calls in November and December 2025, and January 2026!

Our next meeting is scheduled for February 13th, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET. We hope to see you there!

👀 7. Interesting Events and Opportunities

📚 8. Featured Reads, Videos, and Podcasts

📑 Recent Publications

  • Arneson, K., Bernholdt, D., Deshmukh, R., Doherty, M., Eide, E., Fox, E., Fu, L., Goldman, M., Greiner, A., Gunter, D., Ricci, R., Poon, S., Wiese, J., “Illustrating Impacts of User Experience Work in Research Software Engineering.” US-RSE User Experience Working Group White Paper, December 15, 2025. Read the white paper.

  • Clark, D., “To Meld A.I. With Supercomputers, National Labs Are Picking Up the Pace.” The New York Times, November 2025. Read the article.

  • Slack Thread Initiated by Jamil Gafur, “What books would you recommend for new RSE to read (Anything from Software Design, to scientific writing, to fun things you enjoy)”, US-RSE Slack, November 2025. Read the thread.

  • Sanna, A.C., “Cross-LLM Generalization of Behavioral Backdoor Detection in AI Agent Supply Chains,” arXiv preprint, November 2025. Read the preprint.

  • Yehudi, Y., Cashman, M., Goedicke, M., Hasselbring, W., Katz, D.S., Müller, S., Goble, C., Jay, C., “Research Software Lifecycles and Stages,” ECEASST, December 15, 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 • 2021–2026 • US-RSE is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives

Email Mastodon Twitter YouTube LinkedIn GitHub

Share

⬆️ Back to top ⬆️