10 Years of Growth and Inspiration With the Broader Engagement Program

In 2015, Mary Ann Leung—president and founder of the Sustainable Horizons Institute (SHI)—organized the first Broader Engagement (BE) program to take place at a SIAM conference. BE seeks to bring students from all walks of life, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend a conference, into the SIAM community. The program provides financial assistance for students to participate in professional conferences, where they can network with experienced researchers in the fields of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science. Now, a decade and more than 300 students later, we reflect on the BE program’s continued impact; anticipate additional BE activities at the upcoming 2025 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE25), which will take place in Fort Worth, Texas, this March; and invite the entire SIAM community to join the celebration.

Turning Conferences Into Classrooms: A Brief History

Tony Baylis of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Roscoe Giles and Jennifer Teig von Hoffman of Boston University founded BE in 2007 for the Supercomputing Conference, where it ran each year through 2014. In 2015, Lois Curfman McInnes of Argonne National Laboratory (co-chair of the Organizing Committee for CSE15) invited Leung to join the committee. When asked to bolster student attendance at the conference, Leung—who had previously served as co-chair, deputy chair, and chair of the BE program—decided to bring BE to CSE15. By doing so, she hoped to draw more students from underprivileged backgrounds to both CSE15 and the field of computational science and engineering as a whole [1]. 

During the weeklong meeting, BE participants attended invited talks, minisymposium presentations, interdisciplinary technical sessions, workshops, and discussion groups that advanced their knowledge and skillsets. The program was well received, and Leung was again invited to orchestrate BE at CSE17, CSE19, CSE21, and the upcoming CSE25 [3, 4]. In light of the program’s continued success, SIAM’s partnership with BE further expanded to the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS22) and MDS24 [2].

Creating Lasting Connections and Community

Since its inception, BE’s main goal has been to help participants develop a sense of connection and belonging within their fields of study. The program also provides opportunities for professionals to volunteer and learn through activities that target community engagement, including skill-building workshops, mentoring sessions, and daily breakfast meetups called Guided Affinity Groups (GAGs): dynamic study and mentorship groups that feature guest speakers such as SIAM leadership, SIAM activity group officers, conference plenary speakers, and researchers from scientific institutions and national laboratories. After their debut at CSE17 with focus topics like quantum computing and machine learning, GAGs quickly gained popularity and became a core component of the BE program.

Although GAGs commence at the early hour of 7:30 a.m., they offer participants an invaluable chance to interact with their peers, meet researchers with similar backgrounds, and gain mentorship and support from established scientists and academics in their fields. These sessions embody BE’s ongoing mission to connect people and create opportunities. To that end, SHI understands that the program would not exist without direct support from the BE Organizing Committee, tutorial leaders, and GAG leaders who donate their time and hard work to the mission.

For many participants, BE marks their first time attending a professional conference — and sometimes their very first opportunity to network and learn outside of an academic setting. “The most impactful aspects of the BE program were the connections I made and the conversations I had with my peers, mentor, program leaders, and other participants of the conference,” Nya Feinstein of West Virginia University said of MDS24. “Though I learned an incredible amount about my field and was exposed to a wealth of new ideas and inspiration, one of the most impactful takeaways was the importance of community.”

SHI takes great pride in inspiring BE participants to become mentors and teachers, and perhaps return to present their own tutorials in the future. Wiktoria Zielinska of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who took part in BE at MDS24 and is a former SHI Sustainable Research Pathways summer intern, feels that motivation towards leadership. “Being on the other side of that and helping others really instilled a lot of confidence in me and my abilities in tech,” she said. “I want to finish my own tutorial so that I can reach more people who were once in my shoes and didn’t know what they were doing at first.”

At SHI, sustainability is about more than maintaining its programs; it’s about people. By collaborating, mentoring, and returning year after year, BE alumni have created a self-sustaining network that uplifts new voices in science and continues to strengthen the community. In honor of this generous and empowering spirit, SHI will host a special alumni minisymposium at CSE25 called Empowering Each Other: Building a Supportive Scientific Community — Alumni Reflections. This celebratory minisymposium will honor those who have been with us throughout BE’s 10-year journey with SIAM, many of whom started as summer interns or BE participants and are now leaders and teachers for the next generation.

Technical Tutorials and Skill-building Workshops at CSE25

Along with the aforementioned alumni session, BE programming at CSE25 will include five technically diverse GAGs — each led by a distinguished professional from the computational science world. In addition, a skill-building “Lightning Talks” workshop presented by Aimee Maurais of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will help attendees prepare for their poster presentations. Another key highlight will be a series of technical tutorials: beginner-friendly workshops that intend to explore various tools and technologies for computational science and engineering. Each tutorial seeks to make its information accessible to students and anyone who is interested in enhancing their career. The sessions are open to all conference attendees in accordance with BE’s goal to share knowledge and create a community of passionate, connected individuals.

The five technical tutorials at CSE25 will be as follows:

• “Best Practices and Tools for Secure Scientific Software Development,” led by Nitin Sukhija of Slippery Rock University
• “Accessible High-performance Computing Using the Julia Language,” led by Johannes Blaschke of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• “Understanding Generative AI: The Core Concepts,” led by Xi “Bill” Chen of the University of California, Santa Cruz
• “Hands-on HPC Crash Course on High Performance Computing,” led by Suzanne Parete-Koon of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• “Intro to GPU Programming and Optimizing GPU Performance,” led by Giacomo Capodaglio and Gina Sitaraman of AMD.

These tutorials would not be possible without the incredible support of the SHI community, BE supporters, and alumni.

For 10 years, SHI has worked to create a welcoming space for newcomers at SIAM conferences. We look forward to our continued partnership with SIAM and future opportunities to build community.

References
[1] Crivelli, S., & Leung, M.A. (2015, October 1). Life is a tensor…pilot program aims at expanding SIAM impact. SIAM News, 48(8), p. 10.
[2] Español, M., Horth, S., Leung, M.A., & Uribe, V. (2022, December 1). Broader Engagement program expands to the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science. SIAM News, 55(10), p. 3.
[3] Leung, M.A., & Pineda, J. (2021, July 6). Growing, inspiring, and diversifying computational science and engineering through Broader Engagement. SIAM News, 54(6), p. 12.
[4] McCoy, D., & Leung, M.A. (2017, May 1). Broader Engagement program returns to CSE17 with a focus on community engagement. SIAM News, 50(4), p. 8.