Skip to content

2026🔗︎

ISS 2026 Abstract Deadline is Now January 30th

The deadline is fast approaching to submit abstracts to the 2026 Improving Scientific Software Conference. The ISS Conference will be held April 6-10, 2026 in Boulder, CO with the theme of Maintaining the Joy of Software Development.

To give submitters a bit of extra time, we are extending the abstract submission deadline by one week to Friday January 30th, 2026 at 5 PM MT. We welcome anyone with an interest in improving scientific software design, quality, development, deployment, and support to submit an abstract for a talk, tutorial session, or panel. Student travel and registration support is available and submitters can also choose to participate in a conference proceeding.

We have also decided to move ISS 2026 from the previously announced NSF NCAR Mesa Lab location to our traditional home at the Center Green Campus. Due to facilities construction timeline changes, this venue is once again available to us and offers easier logistics for conference attendees. The conference will be hybrid, so virtual presentations are also welcome.

You may submit an abstract here and visit our conference website for more information.

Upcoming SEA Tutorial and Discussion: Fortran Unit Testing and pFUnit

Join the UCAR Software Engineering Assembly (SEA) at 2 pm on February 12th for a tutorial and open discussion on unit testing Fortran code with pFUnit, a Fortran testing framework developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for testing high-performance Fortran libraries. In this session, NSF NCAR software engineer Andy Stokely will highlight how pFUnit simplifies the process of writing tests and lowers the barrier to adopting thorough testing practices in Fortran codebases. The session will begin with a tutorial demonstrating how pFUnit can be used to develop a Fortran library using Test-Driven Development (TDD).

Following the tutorial, the discussion will expand to examine the role of unit testing in scientific and high-performance Fortran development, including how testing can improve code quality, support long-term maintainability, and enable safer refactoring as requirements evolve. The conversation will also focus on how testing can facilitate more effective collaboration between software engineers and scientists. Participants are encouraged to share experiences, challenges, and perspectives related to adopting testing practices in scientific software projects.

Discussion topics will include:

  • Applying Test-Driven Development to Fortran libraries
  • Using unit tests to define expected behavior and verify correctness
  • How testing supports maintainability and safe refactoring
  • Ways unit testing can improve collaboration between scientists and software engineers

All are welcome, regardless of prior experience with pFUnit or unit testing. If you are UCAR/NCAR staff, please use this link to add the event to your Google Calendar. If you are not staff but would like to attend, email the SEA Committee for an invite link.