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An Arctic research team of 150 members that implemented a culture of safety, inclusion, and trust as the foundation for cross-disciplinary science shares lessons from its experiences.
This report summarizes insights from the 2025 Workshop on Next-Generation Ecosystems for Scientific Computing: Harnessing Community, Software, and AI for Cross-Disciplinary Team Science, which convened more than 40 experts from national laboratories, academia, industry, and community organizations to chart a path toward more powerful, sustainable, and collaborative scientific software ecosystems. To address urgent challenges at the intersection of high-performance computing (HPC), AI, and scientific software, participants envisioned agile, robust ecosystems built through socio-technical co-design—the intentional integration of social and technical components as interdependent parts of a unified strategy. This approach combines advances in AI, HPC, and software with new models for cross-disciplinary collaboration, training, and workforce development. Key recommendations include building modular, trustworthy AI-enabled scientific software systems; enabling scientific teams to integrate AI systems into their workflows while preserving human creativity, trust, and scientific rigor; and creating innovative training pipelines that keep pace with rapid technological change. Pilot projects were identified as near-term catalysts, with initial priorities focused on hybrid AI/HPC infrastructure, cross-disciplinary collaboration and pedagogy, responsible AI guidelines, and prototyping of public-private partnerships. This report presents a vision of next-generation ecosystems for scientific computing where AI, software, hardware, and human expertise are interwoven to drive discovery, expand access, strengthen the workforce, and accelerate scientific progress.
Scientific computing is undergoing rapid transformation as advances in artificial intelligence, heterogeneous computing, automation, and data-intensive research reshape not only computational tools but also the institutions, workforce models, and collaborative practices that support scientific discovery. This report synthesizes insights from the 2026 Workshop on Next-Generation Ecosystems for Scientific Computing, the second in a three-year series focused on strengthening scientific computing ecosystems through socio-technical co-design. Workshop discussions identified four interdependent strategic themes: software ecosystems for AI-enabled scientific discovery; trust, validation, and traceability; human-AI teaming and paradigm shifts; and workforce, pedagogy, and governance. The report translates these themes into eight priorities for community action spanning shared research infrastructure, trust and traceability, user experience, human-AI teaming, workforce development, cross-sector coordination, stewardship and sustainability, and evaluation of scientific value. Together, these priorities outline directions for building scientific computing ecosystems that remain trustworthy, sustainable, innovative, and resilient as AI assumes a growing role in scientific work.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been a long-standing leader in driving advances in science and technology through advanced computing. However, DOE laboratories are currently facing urgent workforce challenges, particularly in terms of underrepresentation from key communities, including people of color, women, persons with disabilities, and first-generation scholars. This paper introduces the work carried out as part of the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) Broadening Participation Initiative, which aims to address workforce challenges through a lens that considers the distinct needs and culture of high-performance computing (HPC). The work focuses on three main efforts: hosting Intro to HPC Bootcamps, expanding the Sustainable Research Pathways (SRP) internship and workforce development program, and establishing an HPC Workforce Development and Retention Action Group. Finally, the paper also highlights various workforce efforts throughout the computational science community and explores opportunities for future work aimed at broadening participation in HPC.
Autonomous target selection and pointing refinement steer a remote geochemical LIBS instrument on Mars, increasing data return.
In preparation for the NISAR launch and data collection in 2024, the NISAR Project Science Team is building workflows for each Science Team discipline (Ecosystems, Cryosphere, and Solid Earth). This abstract focuses on the Ecosystem disciplines and the development of on-demand cloud-processing workflows for wetlands inundation, forest biomass, agricultural active crop area, and forest disturbance. The workflow simulates NISAR data using UAVSAR or ALOS-2 Single Look Complex data, which are processed to Level 2 geocoded polarimetric covariance matrix products using InSAR Scientific Computing Environment 3.0 software and to Level 3 science products using the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents. In this presentation, we describe these workflows and efforts to improve efficiency and data accessibility by using a cloud processing system. We present preliminary sample products from each Ecosystem discipline: inundation, forest biomass, crop area, and forest disturbance.
How low clouds over the oceans respond to changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases and aerosol particles is poorly understood. Climate model disagreement in these responses limits the accuracy of predictions of future climate. Processes governing the behavior of marine low cloud need to be improved in models and comprehensive long-term observations provide important constraints. Cloud structure and impacts on climate are shaped by processes operating on a wide range of time and space scales, which interact to modulate cloud dynamics, boundary layer structure, and precipitation. The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) site at Graciosa Island (Azores, 28°W 39°N) began taking measurements in late 2013 to address the need for comprehensive cloud, aerosol, and meteorological observations in a remote marine low cloud environment. The site straddles the boundary between the subtropical and midlatitude climate zones in the eastern North Atlantic and experiences a great diversity of meteorological and cloud conditions. In addition, the ENA site is downwind of the North American continent and is periodically impacted by continental aerosol particles transported there on the prevailing winds. In response to a 2014 proposal call, our team (ENA Site Science Team) laid out a strategy to accelerate research focused on understanding the multi-scale interactions that shape cloud properties by maximizing the utility of the observational capabilities of the ENA site. The proposed work aligned with the scientific directions of the ASR Working Groups. The team, together with collaborators, conducted a program of research focused upon multi-scale cloud processes. The team worked with scientists both within and outside the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program, and with the ARM infrastructure to ensure that the full potential of the ENA site is realized. The suite of instruments at the ENA site has been increasing since the site’s inception and is now essentially complete. In 2019, we laid out a two-year extension of the research, and were granted an extension of the Site Science award.
The Van Allen Probes mission operations materialized through a distributed model in which operational responsibility was divided between the Mission Operations Center (MOC) and separate instrument specific SOCs. The sole MOC handled all aspects of telemetering and receiving tasks as well as certain scientifically relevant ancillary tasks. Each instrument science team developed individual instrument specific SOCs proficient in unique capabilities in support of science data acquisition, data processing, instrument performance, and tools for the instrument team scientists. In parallel activities, project scientists took on the task of providing a significant modeling tool base usable by the instrument science teams and the larger scientific community. With a mission as complex as Van Allen Probes, scientific inquiry occurred due to constant and significant collaboration between the SOCs and in concert with the project science team. Planned cross-instrument coordinated observations resulted in critical discoveries during the seven-year mission. Instrument cross-calibration activities elucidated a more seamless set of data products. Specific topics include post-launch changes and enhancements to the SOCs, discussion of coordination activities between the SOCs, SOC specific analysis software, modeling software provided by the Van Allen Probes project, and a section on lessons learned. One of the most significant lessons learned was the importance of the original decision to implement individual team SOCs providing timely and well-documented instrument data for the NASA Van Allen Probes Mission scientists and the larger magnetospheric and radiation belt scientific community.
This document reviews five options for alert production in LSST Operations Year 1 (LOY1), taking into account any implications on LSST formal requirements including up-scopes, down-scopes or explicit violations. The Data Management System Science Team's preferred option for maximizing LSST science is to generate template images from as much of the data from the commissioning and/or science verification phases as possible and use them to run Difference Image Analysis and alert production during LOY1. A proposal to increase the sky area covered during commissioning via a "filler" scheduler program is also presented. As a potential moderate up-scope, this study presents an option to build interim templates on a $\sim$monthly basis during LOY1, which could increase the accessible sky area by ~1000-2000 deg**2 per month, and should be reconsidered closer to the start of Operations.
A team of scientists, including one from Los Alamos National Laboratory, has found much higher concentrations of silica at some sites the Curiosity rover has investigated in the past seven months than anywhere else it has visited since landing on Mars 40 months ago. The first discovery was as Curiosity approached the area “Marias Pass,” where a lower geological unit contacts an overlying one. ChemCam, the rover’s laser-firing instrument for checking rock composition from a distance, detected bountiful silica in some targets the rover passed along the way to the contact zone. The ChemCam instrument was developed at Los Alamos in partnership with the French IRAP laboratory in Toulouse and the French Space Agency. “The high silica was a surprise,” said Jens Frydenvang of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Copenhagen, also a Curiosity science team member. “While we’re still working with multiple hypotheses on how the silica got so enriched, these hypotheses all require considerable water activity, and on Earth high silica deposits are often associated with environments that provide excellent support for microbial life. Because of this, the science team agreed to make a rare backtrack to investigate it more.”
The science of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells has made dramatic advances over the past three years with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) now reaching ~12%. The upper PCE limit of light-to-electrical power conversion for single-junction OPVs as predicted by theory is ~23%. With further basic research, the vision of such devices, composed of non-toxic, earth-abundant, readily easily processed materials replacing/supplementing current-generation inorganic solar cells may become a reality. Organic cells offer potentially low-cost, roll-to-roll manufacturable, and durable solar power for diverse in-door and out-door applications. Importantly, further gains in efficiency and durability, to that competitive with inorganic PVs, will require fundamental, understanding-based advances in transparent electrode and interfacial materials science and engineering. This team-science research effort brought together an experienced and highly collaborative interdisciplinary group with expertise in hard and soft matter materials chemistry, materials electronic structure theory, solar cell fabrication and characterization, microstructure characterization, and low temperature materials processing. We addressed in unconventional ways critical electrode-interfacial issues underlying OPV performance -- controlling band offsets between transparent electrodes and organic active-materials, addressing current loss/leakage phenomena at interfaces, and new techniques in cost-effective low temperature and large area cell fabrication. The research foci were: 1) Theory-guided design and synthesis of advanced crystalline and amorphous transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layers which test our basic understanding of TCO structure-transport property relationships, and have high conductivity, transparency, and tunable work functions but without (or minimizing) the dependence on indium. 2) Development of theory-based understanding of optimum configurations for the interfaces between oxide electrodes/interfacial layers and OPV active layer organic molecules/polymers. 3) Exploration and perfection of new processing strategies and cell architectures for the next-generation, large-area flexible OPVs. The goal has been to develop for the solar energy community the fundamental scientific understanding needed to design, fabricate, prototype, and ultimately test high-efficiency cells incorporating these new concepts. We achieved success in all of these directions.
The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility will soon begin the process of moving its third mobile facility (AMF3) from Alaska to the Southeastern United States. A workshop in August 2018 identified the Southeast as a priority region of interest for further study by ARM. The Southeast is a region with abundant atmospheric convection, yet the land surface, boundary layer, vegetation, and aerosol properties are markedly different from those seen at ARM’s fixed observatory in Oklahoma, allowing opportunities to explore new research questions. To maximize the scientific value of the new site, DOE’s Biological and Environmental Research program selected a site science team that will help guide the move of AMF3. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York will lead the AMF3 relocation effort. Supported by ARM and DOE’s Atmospheric System Research (ASR), the multi-institutional team is responsible for developing a science plan and initial research project for the Southeastern U.S. deployment.
The Superfacility model is designed to leverage HPC for experimental science. It is more than simply a model of connected experiment, network, and HPC facilities; it encompasses the full ecosystem of infrastructure, software, tools, and expertise needed to make connected facilities easy to use. The three-year Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Superfacility project was initiated in 2019 to coordinate work being performed at LBNL to support this model, and to provide a coherent and comprehensive set of science requirements to drive existing and new work. A key component of the project was the in-depth engagements with eight science teams that represent challenging use cases across the DOE Office of Science.
The Seasonal/Spatial Vertical NPF Variation Study (SSVNV) campaign was conducted to investigate vertically resolved aerosol variability, boundary-layer structure, and new particle formation (NPF) processes across contrasting atmospheric environments through coordinated tethered balloon system (TBS) observations during U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility fixed-site measurements (Dexheimer et al. 2026). The campaign leveraged the overlapping deployments of the third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3) at Bankhead National Forest (BNF; Kuang et al. 2023, 2026), Alabama, and the first ARM Mobile Facility 1 (AMF1) Coast-Urban-Rural Gradient Atmospheric Experiment (CoURAGE) in the Baltimore region. The campaign was operated by the TBS team led by Darielle Dexheimer from Sandia National Laboratories, in collaboration with the BNF site science team lead by Chongai Kuang from Brookhaven National Laboratory and the ARM team.
We present systematic spectral analyses of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected with the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on board the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory during its entire nine years of operation. This catalog contains two types of spectra extracted from 2145 GRBs, and fitted with five different spectral models resulting in a compendium of over 19,000 spectra. The models were selected based on their empirical importance to the spectral shape of many GRBs, and the analysis performed was devised to be as thorough and objective as possible. We describe in detail our procedures and criteria for the analyses, and present the bulk results in the form of parameter distributions. This catalog should be considered an official product from the BATSE Science Team, and the data files containing the complete results are available from the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC)
This is the second of a series of catalogs of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). It extends the first two-year catalog by two more years, resulting in an overall list of 953 GBM triggered GRBs. The intention of the GBM GRB catalog is to provide information to the community on the most important observables of the GBM detected GRBs. For each GRB the location and main characteristics of the prompt emission, the duration, peak flux and fluence are derived. The latter two quantities are calculated for the 50-300 keV energy band, where the maximum energy release of GRBs in the instrument reference system is observed and also for a broader energy band from 10-1000 keV, exploiting the full energy range of GBMs low-energy detectors. Furthermore, information is given on the settings and modifications of the triggering criteria and exceptional operational conditions during years three and four in the mission. This second catalog is an official product of the Fermi GBM science team, and the data files containing the complete results are available from the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center.
Since its launch in 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has triggered and located on average approximately two γ -ray bursts (GRBs) every three days. Here, we present the third of a series of catalogs of GRBs detected by GBM, extending the second catalog by two more years through the middle of 2014 July. The resulting list includes 1405 triggers identified as GRBs. The intention of the GBM GRB catalog is to provide information to the community on the most important observables of the GBM-detected GRBs. For each GRB, the location and main characteristics of the prompt emission, the duration, peak flux, and fluence are derived. The latter two quantities are calculated for the 50–300 keV energy band where the maximum energy release of GRBs in the instrument reference system is observed, and also for a broader energy band from 10 to 1000 keV, exploiting the full energy range of GBM's low-energy [Nai[Tl)] detectors. Using statistical methods to assess clustering, we find that the hardness and duration of GRBs are better fit by a two-component model with short-hard and long-soft bursts than by a model with three components. Furthermore, information is provided on the settings and modifications of the triggering criteria and exceptional operational conditions during years five and six in the mission. This third catalog is an official product of the Fermi GBM science team, and the data files containing the complete results are available from the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center.