Welcome to this month's SSI Fellows Newsletter which shares activities and opportunities taking place within the SSI Fellows' community. Read on for:
- Fellows' Spotlight: Loïc Lannelongue
- July Community Call recap
- Fellows' and related activities
- Upcoming events and calls
Fellows’ Spotlight
Loïc Lannelongue, Research Associate, University of Cambridge
Updates from call
The call was an opportunity to update the SSI community on the recent launch of Green DiSC, a new certification scheme which provides a roadmap for research groups and institutions who want to tackle the environmental impacts of their computing activities. Three levels of certifications will be available: Bronze, Silver and Gold. The criteria were selected following some key principles: evidence-based, to ensure that the criteria included have the maximum impact on research sustainability while favouring engagement with the framework; open access, so that all scientists can engage with this framework; iterative, so that the criteria developed evolve as institutions’ policies change and our understanding of environmental impacts progresses; community-based, to leverage the great resources being designed internally by different institutions.
Green DiSC was launched at the end of June, and has received very positive feedback from the community, so we are now working on building capacity to be able to onboard as many groups as possible.
- My non-work highlight: Going down the DIY rabbit hole to redecorate the whole house (starting from a very low baseline, putting a picture up on a wall was the most DIY I had done before that)… who knew there were so many different paint brushes, and paint colours?!
- My recommendations:
- The book Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford is a brilliant read to better understand the multiple ways in which modern compute, and AI in particular, affect communities and the environment. The focus on people in particular is striking (if a bit depressing).
- And to unwind: the tv show Gray is quite gripping, and a bit different from the usual spy show.
Community Call Recap
During the July SSI Fellows Community Call, we heard Fellows’ updates from Loïc Lannelongue and Meag Doherty. Loïc‘s presentation, “Green DiSC and the sustainable computing community”, provided an update on his Fellowship project, while Meag talked about life after the Inaugural Fellowship year and how the Fellowship can have an impact on your career. After the presentations, discussions on these topics continued in the break-out rooms. You can watch the recordings of the presentations here.
Fellows’ and related activities
- Ukrainian section in Glosario - via Olexandr Konovalov, University of St Andrews (2014 Fellow): “In summer I have coordinated a student group project to add Ukrainian translation to Glosario - a multilingual glossary for computing and data science terms, established by the Carpentries. We have translated almost 100 terms, and now Ukrainian is in the top 5 most represented in Glosario languages. There are more terms to translate - contributors welcome!”.
- Workshop on the next generation of environmental models - via Sam Harrison, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (2022 Fellow): “SSI Fellow Sam Harrison is coordinating a 4-day retreat in the Lake District this Autumn, with the goal of envisioning the future models of the natural world. Topics will include digital twins, underpinning software engineering and architecture, scalability and optimisation, collaborative development platforms, FAIR software, environmental sustainability of computing, and the impact of AI. Registrations for the workshop are already full (you can still register, but you will be placed on a waiting list), but we have several people involved in the SSI community involved, and I am sure outcomes from the workshop will be of interest to the SSI.”
Upcoming events and calls
- Closing date for applications for SSI Fellowship Programme 2025 - The SSI Fellowship Programme supports people with a passion for software in research with a grant of £4000 to carry out activities to improve and promote good computational practice across all research disciplines.
- Date: 7 October 2024
- Visit the Fellowship Programme page
- View the launch webinar recording
- Any questions? Contact: fellows-management@software.ac.uk