US-RSE February 2026 Newsletter

This Month: Cold Weather, Cold AI Reviews, and a Cold World

newsletter December

Published: Feb 17, 2026 by Tinashe M. Tapera (Author & Editor), Sandra Gesing (Editor), Ian Cosden (Editor)

🎵 Coders, it’s cooooold outside in 2026 🎵

Here in the Northern hemisphere, especially for those of us in the East Coast of the US, an unprecedented Stratospheric Warming event has been swelling over North America. What this means is that Polar Vorteces, which is a term meteorological reporters use to describe large waves of cold air, are repeatedly bearing down across the United States’ East Coast. We hope that everyone is staying safe, warm, and doing what they can to make sure others in their community are similarly safe and taken care of.

Meanwhile, trends in AI have been mixed so far this year, with a recent article from Harvard Business Review reporting that AI layoffs are outpacing productivity gains, while proliferation of AI “workslop,” a term for poorly produced AI content, has begun clogging the productivity pipeline (who could have guessed🙄). One can only speculate as to whether we’ll ever find the “AI effectiveness sweetspot,” between uncannily heart-wrenching videos of cats travelling the galaxy to save their family, and 17-year-olds claiming to have found the next solution to everyone’s problem in a mobile app they vibe-coded in 5 hours (and that inevitably brings down an entire Firebase service overnight).

Nevertheless, February is a month to celebrate, because it is ♠️Black History Month♠️!!

two engineers at a whiteboard with a laptop

In this issue:

🔔 1. Black History Month

Here at US-RSE, we maintain a strong dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (which you can read more about here). We believe that a diversity of voices and opinions helps to improve our work and effectiveness as a community, and that initiative includes dedicating time to recognize and celebrate the individuality and uniqueness of each of those voices and the groups they represent. If you are an African American, black, mixed-race, or an African diaspora RSE, we are celebrating YOU this month and recognizing not only what you do for your organization and ours, but also how you encourage and enable others like you to pursue similar career goals, explicitly or implicitly.

Despite the many tragic and unspeakable horrors black and brown people have faced in the United States and abroad over the centuries, and despite those almost certain to come, we are still here, and we are participating, contributing, and leading in all aspects of business, technology, politics, entertainment, and life at large.

So we here at US-RSE want to wish you a safe and sound February and a Happy Black History Month. While the weather may beat us down this month, I encourage you all to keep striving, hoping, and persevering as African Americans in tech have been doing for decades.

Author Tinashe M. Tapera is a Black Zimbabwean who moved to the U.S. in 2013 at age 19, and joyfully celebrates Black History Month alongside African American RSEs, both as a participant and as an ally 😁

😲 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!

Thank you for the overwhelming response to our recent call for volunteers. We are excited to share that general chairs have been appointed to lead each of the core committees for USRSE’26.

These chairs have begun assembling sub‑teams from the pool of volunteers who expressed interest in supporting the respective areas. If you were not selected for a chair position, please stay tuned, as chairs reach out for volunteers for these committee positions.

What’s next?

  • Committee Formation: Sub‑teams will be formed shortly; be on the lookout for an email from a perspective committee chair with details.
  • Conference Planning Milestones: Upcoming milestones—including abstract deadlines, sponsorship outreach, and technical program, will be announced on the official USRSE’26 site over the next few months.
  • Stay Informed: Regular updates will be posted at us-rse.org/usrse26. Please bookmark the page and check back frequently for the latest information.

Your continued involvement is essential to the success of USRSE’26. We look forward to collaborating with you to deliver a vibrant, inclusive, and impactful conference.

📧 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. From The Executive Director’s Desk…

In the near future, our Executive Director will be participating in a number of events and conferences, and if you’re around — reach out! Here is Sandra’s upcoming itinerary for US-RSE members who would like to meet our ED, get involved, or just get to know more about US-RSE:

🤝 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 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

🗞️ 5. Community News

AG-Neuro-RSE Meetup

The Neuro RSE affinity group will meet online on March 4 at 1-2pm PT/4-5pm ET on Zoom.  We plan to go through introductions and give time for each person to talk a little about their research and advertise any resources they would like to share.

Check out the slack channel #ag-neuro-rse for more details!

Cluster Computing Coworking

Likewise, the #clustercomputing slack channel is organizing scheduled coworking meetups for those interested in the trade, sharing information, and being around like-minded people. These meetups will happen every 2nd Wednesday of the month, for approximately an hour or so at 2pm Eastern. Check the Jitsi link for more information.

Community Calls

On February 13th, the US-RSE community met yet again for a rousing community call. The topic was Web and Mobile Apps as Research Software, and stirred up so such conversation that the community decided to start a brand new slack channel, #web-and-mobile-dev, to keep the questions going. Check it out in Slack, as well as this short slide deck from one of our speakers.

Our next meeting is scheduled 12:00-1:00PM ET on March 12th, 2026. We hope to see you there!

👀 6. Interesting Events and Opportunities

📚 7. Featured Reads, Videos, and Podcasts

📑 Recent Publications

  • Mittal, D., “Optimizing healthcare pricing strategies: A data-driven approach to enhance margins and customer value.” Journal of Decision Analytics and Intelligent Computing, August 28, 2025. Read the Article.

  • 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.

🏃 8. Get Involved

US-RSE Working Groups:

🧑‍💼 9. 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

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