CaRCC RCD Monthly Newsletter – August 2026

Research Computing and Data (RCD) Monthly

August 2026

In this issue:

1. Celebrating Ten Years: A Conversation with Jim Bottum on CaRCC’s Founding
2. August Events and Call Topics
3. August All Things AI: NAIRR Pilot & AI-Related Events and Announcements
   
4. CaRCC Volunteer Opportunities

Celebrating Ten Years: A Conversionation with Jim Bottum on CaRCC’s Founding

At PEARC26 last week, we kicked off a year-long celebration of CaRCC’s tenth year! To help keep the party going, we talked with Jim Bottum, one of CaRCC’s founders, to get the history and background on how the organization got started.

August Events And Call Topics At-a-Glance 

Mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network and CaRCC Activity Group Calls (Zoom details at the end), as well as Calls from our RCD ecosystem peers. For handy calendar entries, try the CaRCC People Network Calendar (GCal view; calendar integration). And if you’re not on our mailing lists, you can join via our Members page and join our Slack channels. 

CaRCC Newcomer Welcome and Orientation (August)

Tue August 11 2026 3:30p ET/2:30p CT/1:30p MT/12:30p PT 

(Second Tuesday of each even-numbered month)

Whether you’re new to CaRCC or looking to learn more and get more involved, join us on the first Tuesday of the even months at 3:30pm ET/2:30pm CT/1:30pm MT/ 12:30pm PT for a welcome session and overview of CaRCC groups, tracks, events, and volunteer opportunities. We love meeting our newcomers, and everyone is welcome! Register now 

for call details! 

CaRCC People Network Calls

Data-Facing Track (1st Tuesdays)
Tue  8/4, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
PEARC26 Recap

Strategy and Policy-Facing Track (1st Wednesdays)
Wed 8/5, 12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT
PEARC26 Recap

Researcher-Facing Track (2nd Thursdays)
Thu 8/13>, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
Topic TBD

Emerging Centers Track (3rd Wednesdays)
12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT/ 7a HT
No meeting in August

Systems-Facing Track (3rd Thursdays)
Thu <8/20>, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
PEARC26 Recap

Additional Community Opportunities

RCD Capabilities Model Office Hours: Tue 8/11, 1p ET/ 10a PT (2nd Tuesdays):Have questions about getting started, completing, or viewing benchmarking data with the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model?  Or are you already working with it and want to discuss suggestions for improvements you’d like to see? Meeting coordinates: Zoom Session URL. Join the capsmodel-discuss@carcc.org mailing list or send questions to capsmodel-help@carcc.org.

RCD Mentoring Working Group Monthly Meet-Up: Thu 8/6, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11am MT/ 10a PT (1st Thursdays): Join us for our May RCD Mentoring Working Group session as we continue building out our mentorship program! This month we’ll continue to have breakout conversations around the three teams developing the program: the applications process, mentor details, and mentee details. Meeting coordinates: Zoom Session URL. Join the workforce-mentoring-wg@carcc.org mailing list or send questions to RCD Staff and Student Workforce Mentoring Coordinators.

RCD Workforce Development Interest Group Monthly Meet-Up: Tue 8/11, 2p ET/ 1p CT/ 12p MT/ 11a PT (2nd Tuesdays): Next steps from RCD Nexus Day’s “Building Onramps: Developing a Guide to Facilitate Entry into the RCD Profession” Workshop. Join us to discuss outcomes from RCD Nexus Day at PEARC. If you attended and want to follow up on developing a guide, join to plan next steps. If you didn’t attend Nexus Day, come to learn more about what was discussed and consider joining the ongoing effort. See Zoom details below.  Join the Interest Group mailing list.

AI Facilitation Interest Group Monthly Gathering. Wed 8/12,  1p ET/ 10a PT (2nd Wednesdays): NSF NCAR AI Initiative Community of Practice. Meeting coordinates: Zoom Session URL. Join here: https://carcc.org/ai-facilitation-ig/ 

Regulated Research Community of Practice (RRCoP) Community Discussions: Wed 8/12, 2p ET/ 11a PT (2nd Wednesdays)This month, the topic will be UCF’s Approach to CMMC Level 1: with the processes & tools that also support CMMC Level 2. Please use this Zoom link, and contact info@regulatedresearch.org or Carolyn Ellis with any questions.

US Research Software Engineers Monthly Community Call: Fri 8/14, 2p ET/ 11a PT (2nd Thursdays/2nd Fridays): See https://us-rse.org/calendar/ for more information.

EDUCAUSE Research Computing and Data Community Group Monthly Community Call: Thu 08/27, 1p ET/ 10a PT (4th Thursdays of even months). See the Events tab within EDUCAUSE Connect for more information.

CaRCC Calls and Zoom

All CaRCC People Network calls will take place within the Zoom room below, also visible in the CaRCC People Network Google calendar (see above). Please help us keep these details secure (non-public), but feel free to share with a colleague.

https://utah.zoom.us/my/carcc?pwd=TjFuR3VVM2d5eE5zWnEvWWxDTFBCUT09

All Things AI

A quick-hit listing of upcoming events and training related to the NAIRR Pilot and other AI initiatives

Volunteer Opportunities

See several open volunteer opportunities this month!

RCD Monthly is a newsletter dedicated to the Research Computing and Data (RCD) professional community and others who work to support research using technology. This work is supported by grants OAC- 2436057 and OAC-2100003. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. 

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