CyberTraining: CIP: Training and Developing a Research Computing and Data CI Professionals (RCD-CIP) Community

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Today’s science and engineering research community is interdisciplinary in nature and continually evolving beyond the boundaries of single disciplines, often requiring not only depth but also breadth of knowledge across those disciplines. In particular, science has a growing need for advanced computing resources and professionals who can serve as a bridge between the worlds of scientific research and advanced computing infrastructure, or cyberinfrastructure (CI). This project recognizes and supports these complex needs by training and individually mentoring a cohort of Interdisciplinary Research CI Professionals (IDR-CIPs) who use acquired technical competencies and soft skills to work successfully with research teams. The IDR-CIP trainees are drawn from communities including: domain scientists, interdisciplinary research professionals, faculty, and students. IDR-CIP trainees are embedded into research projects, giving them the opportunity to develop CI skills, and as a result, become part of a larger community. The training program produces experienced CIPs using the following core activities, including: developing individualized training programs; conducting training cycles that support new, current, and returning trainees; embedding trainees within the participating institution’s projects and programs; mentoring scientific research project matching; sponsoring a Faculty Fellows program; fostering communities through sponsoring IDR-CIP trainee participation; and advocating for trainees to become fully funded staff in CIP positions. An outcome of this project includes the definition of new IDR-CIP workforce career paths that reflect their importance for the research enterprise and has the potential to impact how research is done in the NSF ecosystem. The recruitment process actively reaches out to a variety of underrepresented communities, thereby advancing an important aspect of NSF’s goal to broaden participation in science and engineering. It is vital for the competitiveness of our nation to have such cyberinfrastructure professionals available to support researchers and their increasingly complex computational needs.In 2022, the NSF named Growing Convergence Research as one of their 10 Big Ideas. Convergence research interconnects experts who work together to solve problems that require a broad and diverse set of knowledge, methods, expertise, scientific disciplines, and CI capabilities. However, the lack of interdisciplinary cyberinfrastructure (CI) professionals (CIPs) presents a barrier to advancement. This project's main goal is to mitigate this barrier by developing a training program that aligns with the competencies and backgrounds of each individual trainee. An important contribution of this project to the pedagogical challenge of training a CIP workforce is to articulate and organize training around four major elements: 1) Recruitment & Training: strategically reach out to new communities; develop a flexible training cycle that supports new, current and returning trainees; create a curated collection of training materials for CIP training programs; 2) Science & Engineering Project Matching and Mentoring: Based in CIP skillset, identify S&E projects and match each CIP with a mentor; connect trainees to the NSF ACCESS Computational Science Support Network (CSSN); 3) Scientific Research Consulting: Mentor and track trainees as they transition to an independent consultant phase; facilitate CIP trainee transition to full time professional positions by identifying appropriate career paths; 4) Fostering a CIP Community: connect program CIP trainees through meetings and social media; foster interactions with other CIP and CyberTraining programs; sponsor trainees to become trainers and to join other HPC communities. This training program fills an important gap in the CI research ecosystem and helps enable convergence research through the creation of new CIP positions with appropriate job titles and career pathways, and transition CIPs to fully funded staff positions. The CIP training program will raise awareness of CI resources in new communities, provide an avenue for their increased integration into research projects, and support long-term strategic CI development. CIP training materials will be publicly available to reach beyond the NSF cyber workforce via a public website. As a result of the proposed collaboration and outreach, this program will impact thousands of users and help develop the next generation of the CIP research workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.