The IDEAS Productivity project, in partnership with the DOE Computing Facilities of the ALCF, OLCF, and NERSC, and the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP), organizes the webinar series on Best Practices for HPC Software Developers.

As part of this series, we offer one-hour webinars on topics in scientific software development and high-performance computing, approximately once a month. The May webinar is titled Acquisition and Analysis of Times Series of Satellite Data in the Cloud – Lessons from the Field; and will be presented by Marisol Garcia-Reyes (Farallon Institute). The webinar will take place on Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 1:00 pm ET.

Abstract:

Satellite data has grown and matured to levels that allow powerful and relevant analysis in climate science, which requires time series spanning decades. Acquiring such data has been a technical and coding challenge given the historical formats in which data is stored, and analyzing the data has required high levels of coding expertise. With technological advances, like the coding language Python and new storage and process capabilities available in the cloud, there is great potential to increase the use of satellite data in new and diverse research areas. This requires, however, expanding the user base by building capacity in groups with limited coding or technological expertise. A challenge is the steep learning curve for these new technological advances, which can be intimidating and discouraging. To provide a taste of the new technologies and opportunities they provide, the presenter has developed a tutorial to teach potential new users how to acquire, synthesize and analyze satellite and satellite-based time series of data, while learning and using Python and cloud advances in the process. In this webinar, the speaker will share the lessons learned in making and teaching the tutorial, which can be found at https://github.com/marisolgr/python_sat_tutorials.

Mentoring is vital to developing and retaining a diverse, talented, and enabled workforce. The first session in our Workforce Development Webinar series will feature a panel of experienced mentors drawn from High-Performance Computing (HPC) and STEM related careers, who will discuss tips for building the important mentor/mentee relationship and best practices in mentoring. They will share what they have learned from their mentees about developing, networking, and sponsoring the next generation of HPC and STEM professionals.

This webinar is brought to you by the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) HPC Workforce Development and Retention Action Group, that organizes a webinar series on topics related to developing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work culture in the computing sciences.

The IDEAS Productivity project, in partnership with the DOE Computing Facilities of the ALCF, OLCF, and NERSC, and the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP), organizes the webinar series on Best Practices for HPC Software Developers.

As part of this series, we offer webinars on topics in scientific software development and high-performance computing, approximately once a month. The June webinar is titled Normalizing Inclusion by Embracing Difference; and will be presented by Mary Ann Leung (Sustainable Horizons Institute). The webinar will take place on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 1:00 pm ET. This webinar will differ from others in the series, as it will include interactions among the participants and be 90 minutes in length.

Abstract:

Computational science and engineering (CSE) is an inter- and multidisciplinary field. Given the technical breadth of CSE, one might expect CSE communities to include a broad range of demographics, creating an ideal ecosystem for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, while research indicates that social diversity results in greater innovation, the CSE workforce remains largely homogeneous. This interactive webinar will explore what it takes to achieve DEI, how DEI could increase innovation and developer productivity, as well as how cultivating respect and embracing difference could help to make inclusion the norm. The webinar will also include important activities for applying the concepts discussed, deepening understanding, and increasing potential impact.

This webinar is co-organized with the ECP’s newly established HPC Workforce Development and Retention Action Group, which organizes a webinar series on topics related to developing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work culture in the computing sciences.

The IDEAS Productivity project, in partnership with the DOE Computing Facilities of the ALCF, OLCF, and NERSC, and the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP), organizes the webinar series on Best Practices for HPC Software Developers.

As part of this series, we offer one-hour webinars on topics in scientific software development and high-performance computing, approximately once a month. The July webinar is titled Growing preCICE from an as-is Coupling Library to a Sustainable, Batteries-included Ecosystem; and will be presented by Gerasimos Chourdakis (Technical University of Munich). The webinar will take place on Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 1:00 pm ET.

Abstract:

Starting humbly as a coupling library for fluid-structure interaction problems used by just a few academic groups in Germany, preCICE has grown to a complete coupling ecosystem used by more than 100 research groups worldwide, and for a wide range of multi-physics applications. How did that happen? Apart from the library itself, preCICE now maintains ready-to-use adapters for several open-source solvers, tutorial cases, documentation, and more. Users can thus easily couple popular open-source solvers (such as OpenFOAM, SU2, deal.II, or FEniCS) with their in-house simulation software (written in C++, C, Fortran, Python, Matlab, or Julia). In parallel to this, the developers of preCICE had to learn how to write more effective documentation (avoiding fragmentation and getting the user in the loop), how to manage the rapidly growing community (switching from a mailing list to a chatroom and then to a dedicated Discourse forum), and how to organize workshops and training courses. This webinar will focus on lessons learned that can help any research software project grow in a sustainable way.

Abstract:

This tutorial will introduce libEnsemble, a Python toolkit for coordinating asynchronous and dynamic ensembles of calculations across massively parallel resources.

Target participants are researchers running large numbers of computations who would like to train models, perform optimizations based on simulation results, or perform other adaptive parameter studies. Participants will learn to use libEnsemble’s generation and simulation functions to express portable ensembles, and to utilize the growing library of example functions.

The presenters will address how to couple libEnsemble workflows with any user application and apply advanced features including the allocation of variable resources and the cancellation of simulations based on intermediate outputs. Using examples from current ECP software technology and application integrations, the presenters will demonstrate how libEnsemble’s mix-and-match approach can help interface libraries and applications with exascale-level resources.

The tutorial will be presented by Stephen Hudson, Jeffrey Larson and John-Luke Navarro.

Agenda:

• Overview of libEnsemble
• Simple sine tutorial (with hands-on)
• Data workflow
• Running with user applications (with hands-on)
• GPU example
• Variable resource management
• Optimization using APOSMM
• Running ensembles across multiple systems

The IDEAS Productivity project, in partnership with the DOE Computing Facilities of the ALCF, OLCF, and NERSC, and the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP), organizes the webinar series on Best Practices for HPC Software Developers.

As part of this series, we offer one-hour webinars on topics in scientific software development and high-performance computing, approximately once a month. The August webinar is titled Effective Strategies for Writing Proposal Work Plans for Research Software; and will be presented by Chase Million (Million Concepts). The webinar will take place on Wednesday, August 10, 2022 at 1:00 pm ET.

Abstract:

Effective research proposals must persuade review panels that the project objectives can be achieved and that the requested resources are reasonable and sufficient resources for doing so. A clear, plausible work plan is central to this persuasive process. Despite the fact that many research projects require a great deal of software development, the true costs of software development tasks are often underappreciated and underestimated by both proposers and reviewers. Accurately judging and communicating these costs leads to better proposal and project outcomes. We will quickly survey software project scoping, requirements elicitation, and estimation methods appropriate for the pre-proposal phase, then explain how these can be used to generate a strong and convincing work plan. Topics will include vision and scope, concept of operations, and requirements specification documents; work breakdown structures; requirements / task matrices; and Gantt charts. Strategies for maximizing the impact of these artifacts within a research proposal will be discussed, with suggestions for further reading.