Scientific Software Days 2016

The 7th Annual Scientific Software Days Conference

Austin, Texas

February 25--26, 2016

About

Scientific Software Days (SSD) is a successful regional conference that has been held for seven years running at the University of Texas, Austin. This year we are seeking to expand the impact of the conference to a national scale. The target audience are users and developers of scientific software, and the goals of the conference are two fold:

Share best practices among scientific software communities.
Share the latest tools and technology relevant to scientific software.

Past keynotes speakers include Greg Wilson (2008), Victoria Stodden (2009), Steve Easterbrook (2010), Fernando Perez (2011), Aleksandra Pawlik and Will Schroeder (2012), and Neil Chue Hong (2013).

Keynote Speakers

Robert van de Geijn University of Texas at Austin

Intelligent Design of Scientific Software slides (.pptx): 88MB

Jeff Hammond Intel

MPI: As Easy as 2, 3, 4 (Why Most of What You Think You Know About MPI is Wrong) slides (.pdf): 1.6MB

Speakers

Brian Adams Sandia National Laboratory

Dakota: Benefits and Challenges of Lab-developed Open Source Scientific Software slides (.pdf): 1.6 MB

Jed Brown University of Colorado Boulder

PETSc: Technical and Social Aspects of Library Development slides (.pdf): .4MB

Tim Davis Texas A&M University

Mathematical Software Development in Academic, Industry, and Government Labs: A Personal Perspective

Christine Doig Continuum Analytics

Parallel Computing and Large-Scale Data Visualization in Python with Dask and Datashader

Iain Dunning Massachusetts Institute of Technology

JuliaOpt: Optimization-related Projects in Julia slides (.pdf): 1.2MB

Victor Eijkhout Texas Advance Computing Center

User Support Software Development at a Large Computing Center

Simon Funke Simula Research Laboratory

FEniCS: High-level tools for solving Partial Differential Equations

James Howison University of Texas at Austin

Sustainability in Scientific Software: Ecosystem Context and Science Policy slides (.pptx): .9MB

Dan Katz University of Chicago / National Science Foundation

Software as Cyberinfrastructure at NSF slides (.pdf): 4MB

Fernando Perez University of California Berkeley

The Architecture of Jupyter: Interactive by Design slides (.pdf): 42MB

Cory Quammen Kitware

Parallel Data Analysis and Visualization with ParaView 5

Ridgway Scott University of Chicago

50 Years of Scientific Computing: from Floating Point to Integers slides (.pdf): 0.4MB

Roy Stogner University of Texas at Austin

PDE Discretization and Analysis with libMesh slides (.pdf): 1.3MB

Schedule

Thur., Feb. 25

8:00--9:00 Registration/Breakfast
9:00--10:00 Robert van de Geijn
10:00--10:30 Coffee
10:30--10:55 Cory Quammen
10:55--11:20 Dan Katz
11:20--11:45 Iain Dunning
11:45--1:15 Lunch
1:15--1:40 Fernando Perez
1:40--2:05 Jed Brown
2:05--2:20 Coffee
2:20--2:45 Ridgway Scott
2:45--3:05 Christine Doig
3:05--4:00 Poster session
4:00--5:00 SIAM student chaper reception

Fri., Feb. 26

8:00--9:00 Breakfast
9:00--10:00 Jeff Hammond
10:00--10:30 Coffee
10:30--10:55 Brian Adams
10:55--11:20 Simon Funke
11:20--11:45 Roy Stogner
11:45--1:15 Lunch
1:15--1:40 Tim Davis
1:40--2:05 Victor Eijkhout
2:05--2:20 Coffee
2:20--2:45 James Howison
2:45--3:05 Panel: Tim Davis, Christine Doig & Jennifer Proft

Registration

Conference registration is done through Eventbrite. Click the 'Register' button and you can then select what type of registration (student vs. non-student) to purchase.

If you register as a student, please remember to bring valid student ID with you to the event.
Refunds will be allowed up until two weeks before the event.
To present proof of your registration purchase at the conference, please either print out your ticket or use the Eventbrite mobile app to present your ticket.

~~Register (redirects to Eventbrite)~~ (inactive)

Poster Session

A poster session will be held on Thursday, February 25, where participants can share their work related to scientific software. Posters may present specific scientific libraries, packages, frameworks, etc.; they may also present work addressing common issues in scientific software development, such as reproducibility, verification, profiling, portability, performance, etc.

If you are interested in participating, please email the conference organizers ssd-organizers@googlegroups.com and include the names of all authors, the title, and an abstract (max. 75 words) for your poster. Poster presenters may also prepare 2-3 slides for a lightning talk before the poster session, if they choose.

Location & Travel

Travel Support

The conference has a limited amount of funding to support students traveling to the conference. Priority will be given to:

Poster session participants, and
members of underrepresented groups.

Please inquire with the organizers at ssd-organizers@googlegroups.com if you are interested.

Location

Talks will be held in the Avaya Auditorium in the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Building on the corner of East 24th Street & Speedway on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

Lodging

A block of hotel rooms has been reserved at the Embassy Suites: click ~~here~~ (inactive) to book. The deadline for this block is February 9th.

Here are some other options that are reasonably convenient:

Transportation

Public transportation: Capital Metro has frequent routes to and from the UT campus; UT-specific route information can be found here. Route 7 is the nearest route for the Embassy Suites hotel; routes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8 all go from campus to stops downtown, as well as the 801 rapid.

Capital Metro also has buses to and from the airport.

Visitor parking information for UT Austin can be found here.

Steering Committee

Sergey Fomel, University of Texas at Austin
Robert Kirby, Baylor University
Matt Knepley, Rice University
Kevin Long, Texas Tech University
Suzanne Pierce, Texas Advance Computing Center
Jennifer Proft, University of Texas at Austin
James Stewart, Sandia National Laboratories

Organizing Committee

Damon McDougall, University of Texas as Austin
Yenming Mark Lai, Zilliant
Tobin Isaac, University of Chicago