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2025-12-01 NSF OpenCI Meeting Agenda & Summary

2025-12-01 NSF OpenCI Meeting Agenda & Summary

Attendees:

John Towns, Amitava (Amit) Majumdar, Chuck Pavloski, Dina Meek, Kim Mann Bruch, Cindy Wong, Misha Shah, Sharon Geva, Ed Walker, Shannon Bradley

Parking Lot

Decisions made during the meeting:

Use Decision Macro

Weekly ACO–NSF Meeting Structure  

Items in GREEN are instructions for each section.

  1. Joint Program Updates (10 min) 

    1. ACO Program Updates (5 min) - John Towns

      1. High-level summary of what changed since last week. 

      2. Metrics snapshot (usage, staffing, financials). 

      3. Staffing Report - working on removing encumbrances from A01 for John and Chuck and allocating them to A02 and A03

        1. A01 - WBS 4: Project Office - Misha Shah, Shannon Bradley

        2. A02 - WBS 5: Governance - Executive Council - John Towns

        3. A03 -WBS 5: Governance - External Advisory Board / WG & SCs - Chuck Pavloski

        4. A04 - WBS 1: Communications & Outreach - Dina Meek, Megan Johnson, Megan Janeski , Andrew Helregel

        5. A05 - WBS 2: Community Building and Engagement - defunct

        6. B01 - WBS 3: Evaluation & EAB - San Diego Supercomputing Center

        7. B02 - Georgia Tech - defunct

      4. Financials - report from October being worked on right now

      5. We do need to know what will be happening next after the end of this program - NSF knows and will update as information is available

        1. current CR is only until Jan 30, 2026

    2. NSF Updates (5 min) 

      1. NSF perspective: relevant program, agency, or portfolio updates 

      2. Any context that may affect ACCESS or ACO operations. 

      3. Season for taking vacation time before they lose it is now - so Sharon may be taking some vacation

      4. If you have anything important - please let her know because she has thousands of emails

      5. Has not reviewed our Quarterly Report - (it was an IPR)

      6. Still needs to check into the end date for the project - awards database is showing something different

      7. The National Science Foundation (NSF) headquarters is being moved in January 2026 to a new location

      8. The NSF is undergoing a major reorganization that includes abolishing all 37 divisions and replacing them with "clusters" focused on five priority research areas: AI, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science. This restructuring involves eliminating a significant number of senior executive positions, reducing the number of temporary staff (rotators), and has led to workforce reductions and a shift in management structure. 

      9. NSF may not be able to travel to Chicago in February for the Quarterly - and if they are shutdown again she may not be able to attend at all

        1. May only be able to attend by Zoom

  2. NSF Action Items - https://access-ci.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/ATT/list?sortBy=duedate&direction=ASC&filter=status%20IN%20(%22To%20Do%22%2C%20%22In-Progress%22)%20AND%20%22Category%5BCategory%5D%22%20IN%20(%22Original-PEP%22%2C%20%22PY3-PEP-WBS-5%22%2C%20%22PY3-PEP-WBS-4%22%2C%20%22PY3-PEP-WBS-3%22%2C%20%22PY3-PEP-WBS-2%22%2C%20%22PY3-PEP-WBS-1%22%2C%20%22NSF%20Meeting%20To%20Do%22)%20AND%20due%20%3C%202025-10-01 - (5 min) - Shannon will be prepping for the next quarterly report this week

    image-20251201-160410.png

     

  3. Carryover Action Items (5 min) 

    1. Review prior week’s decisions & commitments. 

    2. Confirm closed vs. still open. 

      1. Shannon is prepping for the next quarterly report

      2. Misha will be presenting on the ACO Goals and Outcomes next week

    3. Note blockers. 

  4. Critical Status & Red Items (10 min) 

    1. Current or Overdue Tasks (top 3–5) - https://access-ci.atlassian.net/browse/ATT-210

      1. John is seeing content for the website being set up and worked on - it seems to be naturally morphing into things that are similar to ACCESS

      2. John will put it on the agenda for next week

    2. Owner quick updates + path to resolution. 

    3. NSF input requested if escalation/decision is needed. 

  5. Program Spotlight (15 min) 

    1. Brief look at one priority area each week (e.g., risk, staffing, allocations, milestones). 

    2. Goal: share context and keep alignment at the program level. 

    3. Detailed work continues in ACO team meetings — this time is for big-picture feedback.  

    4. No list of

    5. Summary of progress made during October and November

      1. Working on Dec Quarterly meeting

        1. Misha leading preparation for an EC+ meeting - to prepare for PY5 together

        2. Identifying priorities as a whole for the program

        3. Sharon - no reason why she cannot attend - will check with EC to confirm sending an invitation

      2. Working on Feb Quarterly meeting

        1. Location selected

        2. Hotel selected

        3. Work on Catering next

        4. EAB meeting will occur at the same time

      3. SC Conference in St Louis

        1. Sharon is interested in how things went

          1. John thought booth went well - good foot traffic level

          2. ACCESS received 3 HPC wire awards

          3. Most common thing John heard was: more people interested in collaborating on things than he has seen in the past

          4. Chuck felt the same - deliberate effort of contacting people who could collaborate

            1. AI applications seemed to be the biggest topic of interest

          5. Dina - felt there were fewer students - lighter traffic to the booth than last year - were right by the door

            1. more people knew of ACCESS than in the past

            2. lots of staff support for expert questions

            3. new video for booth this year - replaced the original early one with branding change - focus on personas and what could be expected from ACCESS as an educator, student, or researcher

            4. we were able to get the same booth size and our number 2 choice for next year

          6. Kim - made a lot of connections - HPC wire publisher appreciated that we cover the smaller universities in our stories - he is friends with The Hill publisher if we want to pursue an OpEd

            1. Texas Tec is interested in us writing an article about how they are using ACCESS for classes - and showing students how to use a supercomputer

          7. Amit - good discussions, spent most of the time in the exhibition hall

          8. Cindy - location we were in was good - right at the front - but people didn’t seem to want to linger too long at the front - wasn’t able to attend in person

        2. Were the sessions well attended?

          1. John - went to as many as he could - they seemed to be reasonably well attended

          2. the conference did better at putting sessions in rooms of the right size this year

  6. Wrap-Up: Next Steps & Action Items (2–3 min) 

    1. Confirm owners + deadlines. 

    2. Recap today’s decisions. - https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1753120769/2025-12-01+NSF+OpenCI+Meeting+Agenda+Summary#Decisions-made-during-the-meeting%3A

    3. Identify materials NSF expects before the next meeting. 

      1. Let Sharon know if she should attend the EC+ Meeting on Dec 11.

 

Additional Discussion

 

Next Meeting: Dec 8, 2025 next meeting