Maria (Valentina) Garcia Alvarado: Refactoring and modernising CMIP input processing workflows – an ACCESS-NRI internship project
Authors
Maria (Valentina) Garcia Alvarado (ANU)
Paul Leopardi (ACCESS-NRI)
Davide Marcheggiani (ACCESS-NRI)
Heidi Nettelbeck (ACCESS-NRI)
Paige Martin (ACCESS-NRI)
Introduction and scientific context
Preparing climate models for international collaborations such as CMIP7 requires not just scientific expertise but robust, maintainable software infrastructure. ACCESS-NRI’s PhD Internship Program embeds PhD students within ACCESS-NRI to contribute to this infrastructure while gaining experience in research software engineering. In this poster, we present the program itself, work towards a CMIP-related project, and some reflections on the experience thus far.
Methodology/project summary
We describe the structure of the internship program and the project currently underway: refactoring and modernising the Python codebase used to generate ancillary input files for ACCESS-ESM1.6 CMIP experiments, with the goal of improving maintainability, documentation, and test coverage in preparation for supporting ACCESS-ESM3. Activities include understanding existing workflows, working with NetCDF and UK Met Office Fields File formats, and contributing refactored code following ACCESS-NRI software engineering standards via collaborative GitHub workflows.
Results
This poster will be presented midway through the internship, so we will share reflections on the experience and project so far, including what it looks like to contribute to real research infrastructure as an early-career researcher, and what the internship program offers both to interns and to the broader ACCESS community.
Audience
- Anyone interested in the ACCESS-NRI internship program or in building research software engineering skills
- Climate modellers and developers who run CMIP7 ACCESS models
Keywords
Research software engineering, internship, CMIP7, ACCESS-ESM, Python, building technical skills