1. Award Number
ACI-1547611
Sandra Gesing
Center for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame
sandra.gesing@nd.edu
RSE Leadership Meeting, London, UK
30 January 2018
Research Software Engineers, Science
Gateway Developers and Cyberpractitioners
– Initiatives in the US

2. 2
• In the middle of nowhere of northern Indiana
(1.5 h from Chicago)
• 4 undergraduate colleges
• ~35 research institutes and centers
• ~12,000 students
University of Notre Dame

3. University of Notre Dame

4. Center for Research Computing
• Software development and profiling
• Cyberinfrastructure/science gateway development
• Computational Scientist support
• Collaborative research/
grant development
• System administration/
prototype architectures
• Computational resources:
25,000 cores+
• Storage resources: 3 PB
• National resources (e.g., XSEDE)
• ~40 researchers,
research programmers,
HPC specialists
CRC and OIT building
http://crc.nd.edu CRC HPC Center (old Union Station)

5. 5

6. 6
It’s Research
Software
Engineering
It’s
Postdoc
Work
It’s Research
Programming
It’s
Computational
Research
It’s
Science
Gateway
Development
It’s
Research
Facilitation

7. URSSI: Conceptualizing a US Research
Software Sustainability Institute
7
• PIs: Karthik Ram, Jeffrey Carver, Sandra Gesing,
Daniel S. Katz, Nicholas Weber
• December 2017 – December 2018
• Goals:
• Plan an institute in the context of research software
• Build the community
• Vision of the institute:
• Improve how individuals and teams function
• Improve research software
• Improve the research field itself

8. URSSI Activities and How to Get Involved
8
• Workshops
• First one will be 10-12 April 2018 at Berkeley
• Survey
• in preparation
• Ethnographic studies
• Web site & dissemination
• http://urssi.us/
• https://twitter.com/si2urssi
• Sign up for Newsletter
• Email list
• Support for building US RSE community

9. Science Gateways (VREs and VLs)
9
• Increased complexity of
• today’s research questions
• hardware and software
• skills required
• Greater need for openness
and reproducibility
• Science increasingly driving
policy questions
• Opportunity to integrate
research with teaching
• Better workforce preparation
We need end-to-end
solutions that provide
broad access to
advanced resources
and
allow all to tackle
today’s challenging
science questions
è Science
Gateways

10. Science Gateways Community Institute
10
• Diverse expertise on
demand
• Longer term support
engagements
• Software and visibility
for gateways
• Information exchange in
a community
environment
• Student opportunities
and more stable
career pathshttps://sciencegateways.org/
https://twitter.com/sciencegateways

11. Incubator Service
11
Technology
Planning
• Choosing technologies
• Cybersecurity
• Software engineering
• Interfaces to compute and
data
• Business model development
• Financial planning
• Project management
• Software licensing
• Staff and sustainability
planning
Business Planning
Specialized Expertise
Security
• Center for Trustworthy Scientific
Cyberinfrastructure
Sustainability
• Nancy Maron, creator of the ITHAKA
S+R course on Sustaining Digital
Resources
Evaluation & Impact Measurement
• Ann Zimmerman Consulting
Campus Resource Development
Client Interaction
Planning
• Usability studies
• Web/visual/graphic design
• Impact measurement
• Community engagement
• Support for education
Common Experiences
• Training sessions
• Group interactions
Continuing Engagement
• Customized structure, content, goals
• Mentoring
• Pay It Forward
A Framework for Decision Making
Network / Cohort Formation
An Ongoing
Dispassionate
Ear

12. Sustainability via On-Campus Teams
• Great visibility for the institution’s research
activities
• Synergy effects between projects
• Shared resources, costs and expertise across
departments
• Lower learning curves
• Expertise that is otherwise difficult for individual
projects to obtain
• Ability to retain top-quality research computing
support by providing interesting projects
12

13. Challenges
• Some topics and roles are
only needed for part of the
project
⇒ Not fully funded positions
via one project
⇒ For diverse expertise,
several different people
are needed
13

14. Opportunities
• A breadth of interesting topics in the science
gateway creation process
• Novel frameworks and web applications
• Inter- and multidisciplinary work
• Contributing to grand challenges, e.g., Malaria
eradication
• HPC usage…
• A breadth of interesting roles
• HPC programmers, designers, statisticians, librarians,
machine learning experts, usability experts,…
14

15. Workforce Development
15
Providing Financial Support
• Enabling students learning gateway
skills
• Including internship experiences
Integrating Gateways into Course
Content
• Providing broader access to high-end
resources
Promoting Gateway-
Related Career Paths
• Campus
opportunities
• Job boards
Partners
National Organization for the Professional
Advancement of Black Chemists and
Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE)
Association of Computer/ Information
Sciences and Engineering Departments at
Minority Institutions (ADMI)
Molecular
Science Software
Institute
Google Summer of Code
(GSoC)
Establishing Center for
Training and Education at
ECSU
• Vigorous schedule of on-site and virtual
training
• Development of training and course
curricula about science gateways
technologies
SGCI Institute Areas
4
Focal
Areas
• Student-
related
conference
programs

16. ACI-REF
• Advanced Cyberinfrastructure – Research and
Education Facilitators
16
https://aciref.org/

17. ACI-REF Virtual Residency
• Yearly workshop since 2015
• Intense one-week long
• Hands-on and
presentations
(technical and
soft skills)
• Proposal for
workshop series
underway
17
http://www.oscer.ou.edu/acirefvirtres2017.php

18. Thanks!
18
https://sciencegateways.org/
https://twitter.com/sciencegateways
http://urssi.us/
https://twitter.com/si2urssi
https://aciref.org/
http://www.oscer.ou.edu/
acirefvirtres2017.php