Author Archives: Ian Cosden

Wrapping Up a Successful INTERSECT RSE Bootcamp at Princeton

Posted on by

We’re thrilled to share that the third annual INTERSECT Research Software Engineering Bootcamp, held July 14-18, 2025 at Princeton University, concluded with great success! This immersive 4.5-day event brought together a vibrant cohort of intermediate research software developers from diverse domains, many of whom lack formal computer science training.

Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant and organized in collaboration with Dr. Jeff Carver from the University of Alabama, the bootcamp focused on core Research Software Engineering (RSE) practices. Led by volunteer instructors from the broader RSE community, participants engaged in hands-on sessions covering:

Software Design

Collaborative Git & Pull Requests

Code Review

Licensing & Documentation

Testing & CI/CD

Packaging & Distribution

The energy and enthusiasm throughout the week were inspiring. Attendees not only sharpened their technical skills but also built lasting connections across institutions and disciplines. We’re proud to support the growth of the RSE community and grateful to everyone who made this event possible.


More information on INTERSECT, including the open-source curriculum is available here: https://intersect-training.org/.

Posted in Uncategorized

Bridging Communities: Ten Simple Rules for RSE–SER Collaboration

Posted on by

We’re excited to announce the publication of a new paper, Ten Simple Rules for Catalyzing Collaborations and Building Bridges between Research Software Engineers (RSEs) and Software Engineering Researchers (SERs), authored by Nasir Eisty, Jeffrey Carver, Johanna Cohoon, Ian Cosden, Carole Goble, and Samuel Grayson.

Published in IEEE Computing in Science & Engineering (CiSE), this work emerged from discussions at a Dagstuhl Seminar and addresses a critical but often overlooked opportunity in the research software ecosystem: fostering collaboration between RSEs and SERs.

While both communities share a passion for improving software in research, they often operate in distinct environments, with different vocabularies, incentives, and expectations. This paper offers ten actionable rules designed to bridge those gaps, encouraging meaningful, sustained partnerships that combine practical experience with theoretical insight.

By working together, RSEs and SERs can drive innovation in tools, practices, and infrastructure, ultimately advancing the quality and impact of scientific research.

Read the preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03012

Published version: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11003859

Posted in Uncategorized

Hello World from the Princeton RSE Group!

Posted on by

Welcome to the first Princeton RSE group blog entry!  Before we get into the good stuff, here’s a bit of background

About Us

A relatively new addition, the Princeton RSE group formed in late 2016 within the Princeton Research Computing Department.  We develop software long term with traditional research groups to enable and advance research. We strive to develop high quality software both in terms of performance, and sustainability/maintainability.  We work alongside research groups from multiple disciplines.  You can read more about our group on our webpage and the individual members of our group here.

What you can expect out of this blog

We’ll be sharing software projects we’ve worked on including major releases, scripts and solutions we’ve generated, and little interesting discoveries that have come up along the way.  We’re looking to share some of the best practices we’ve settled on, point out some lessons learned, and try to foster discussions within the broader RSE and research software community.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged