X-CITE: Cyberinfrastructure Training and Education for Synchrotron X-Ray Science
On Wednesday, June 17, 2026, CHESS will offer a free workshop on X-ray software and computing intended for CHESS users with upcoming beamtime and data analysis needs.
This workshop is open to in-person participants only; no virtual option is available. The registration questions on Linux and Python are meant to assist us in planning these tutorials. Please bring a laptop for use in the hands-on tutorial.
We welcome participants of all levels of experience. For those with little or no familiarity with scientific computing, we will distribute pre-workshop introductory lessons on remote access, Linux, Python, and the CHESS research workflow about two weeks before the workshop (early-June).
The program on June 17 will start with a morning plenary session followed by an afternoon parallel session with hands-on tutorials specific. The material presented on June 17 will assume familiarity with Linux and Python at the level of the pre-workshop introductory lessons.
The X-CITE workshop is geared toward cyberinfrastructure (CI) training for the community of scientists and researchers using the CHESS synchrotron X-ray facility and similar light sources. The training materials presented during the workshop and the associated training activities will help reduce barriers to the use of CHESS instruments, data, software tools, and computing resources to help users in key steps critical to their scientific campaigns - from data collection, data processing, running simulations, to storing and publishing data.
This edition of the workshop will cover selected and “most wanted” materials ranging from (a) overview of CHESS research workflow and CI - best practices for data collection, using software for data analysis, using compute farms, and preparing for your beamtime, (b) FAIR data management and how it applies to data collected by CHESS users, (c) introduction to science gateways with an Open OnDemand example, and executing scientific workflows on CHESS computing systems, and (d) refresher of systems fundamentals (Linux, remote access, command line, storing and moving your data) and Python programming.
This day-long workshop will be structured around a mix of lectures introducing the materials customized for CHESS users, hands-on sessions where participants will have the opportunity to go through end-to-end examples with the workshop instructors, followed by office hours from the instructors to address specific questions and concerns.
Although this workshop is geared towards users who are new to CHESS CI, experienced users are also invited to attend, participate in the advanced hands-on sessions, and provide feedback on the materials presented.
