Welcome to PEARC20! PEARC20’s theme is “Catch the Wave.” This year’s theme embodies the spirit of the community’s drive to stay on pace and in front of all the new waves in technology, analytics, and a globally connected and diverse workforce. We look forward to this year’s PEARC20 virtual meeting, where we can share scientific discovery and craft the future infrastructure.
The conference will be held in Pacific Time (PT) and the times listed below are in Pacific Time.
The connection information for all PEARC20 workshops, tutorials, plenaries, track presentations, BOFs, Posters, Visualization Showcase, and other affiliated events, are in the PEARC20 virtual conference platform, Brella. If you have issues joining Brella, please email pearcinfo@googlegroups.com.
The importance of utilizing research computing and data infrastructure for scientific discovery and scholarly achievement has grown as research questions become more complicated and datasets get larger. Many higher education institutions have built infrastructure utilized by researchers and supported by local research computing staff. Some of these research computing groups are large, with several infrastructure and support staff, while others may be supported by only one or two staff members. For both of these groups, the Campus Champions program has provided an opportunity for knowledge exchange, professional development, and growth (Brazil 2019). Over the past twelve years, the Campus Champions program has grown to over 630 Champions at over 300 research institutions. A significant number of Champions attend the PEARC conference; in 2019, over 20% of PEARC attendees were Champions. With on average 50 new Champions joining the program per year, a cohesive and all-encompassing on-boarding program must be in place to ensure that the Champions understand how to assist members at their institutions as well as their peers in the community. For several years, a formal on-boarding process has served as a basic introduction, with members of the community relying on the web or their colleagues to determine where appropriate resources and information might be located. A more extensive process that includes mentoring and exposure to resources is desired. Given the number of Campus Champions who attend PEARC, and its vision to foster "the creation of a dynamic and connected community of advanced research computing professionals who promote leading practices and the frontiers of research, scholarship, teaching, and industry application" [PEARC 2019], hosting a workshop dedicated to the on-boarding of Campus Champions would have maximum impact.
