Corrales P1,3, Bateman N1,2, Wellington A1,4, Gray M5
1The Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia, 2Australia’s climate simulator, ACCESS-NRI, Canberra, Australia, 3ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, Melbourne, Australia, 4National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Canberra, Australia, 5Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, Perth, Australia
Biography:
Paola Corrales – The Australian National University – 21st Century Weather.
Paola has a PhD in Atmospheric Science from the University of Buenos Aires and an undergrad degree in Environmental Management. She has experience working with Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models and developing software using R and Fortran. She is also part of R-Lades rOpenSci and The Carpentries and is interested in open source, open science and reproducibility. Currently she is in the Research Software Engineer team for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century and SSI fellow 2026.
Natalia Bateman – Australia’s climate simulator, ACCESS-NRI
Natalia is a biologist from the National University of Colombia and obtained a Masters by Research in History and Philosophy of Science in 2003 from the University of Sydney. Then she ran out with the Shell Questacon Circus for a year, completing a Graduate Diploma in Science communication in 2006. Since 2008 she has been working in science communication, initially at CSIRO and then at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis. Currently she is the Communications and Engagement manager at Australia’s climate simulator, ACCESS-NRI.
Andrew Wellington – National Computational Infrastructure, The Australian National University
Andrew is Associate Director (HPC) at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). After starting his career in enterprise IT and software development, he has been instrumental in the design, installation, and management of NCI’s high-performance computing systems including Gadi, the current peak HPC system. Andrew’s deep understanding of technical systems and research requirements has allowed him to support NCI’s work to advance cutting edge scientific discovery across Australia.
Mark Gray – Head of Strategic Partnerships, Pawsey Supercomputing Centre
Mark Gray is a strategic technology leader specialising in national-scale research infrastructure, high-performance computing, and data-intensive science. He currently serves as Head of Strategic Partnerships at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, where he leads national collaborations, major initiatives, and cross-sector partnerships that advance Australia’s scientific and innovation capabilities. With a career spanning more than a decade at Pawsey in technical and senior management roles, Mark has played a central role in delivering large-scale systems such as advanced HPC platforms, cloud environments, and national data services.
Before joining Pawsey, Mark worked across leading research organisations including NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Curtin University, and CSIRO-affiliated programs. His background combines atmospheric science, remote sensing, software engineering, and research computing, giving him a rare ability to bridge scientific domains and technical infrastructure strategic thinking.
Mark is particularly focused on emerging domains such as AI-ready data ecosystems, federated national research infrastructure, and sovereign computing capability. He is known for building high-impact partnerships across government, academia, and industry, and for shaping long-term initiatives that position Australia at the forefront of data-driven discovery and advanced computing innovation.
Abstract:
Research computing is a fundamental component across disciplines that tackle global challenges, from Earth sciences to health, data science and artificial intelligence. High-performance computing (HPC), data storage, infrastructure and increasingly complex software workflows consume energy and contribute to the (usually unstated) environmental footprint of undertaking research. In the context of the climate crisis, identifying and quantifying that footprint, and finding ways to reduce it, should be an integral part of research practice.
The session will start with a short presentation about energy efficient computing, and current initiatives and tools to inspire participants to propose potential discussion topics. The topics can be anywhere from tools to measure energy consumption of HPC jobs, to infrastructure choices and data centre designs, to challenges, policies and guidelines for organisations, etc. We welcome all contributions.
In the second half of the session, participants will divide into smaller groups to discuss the most popular topics. Through facilitated discussion, each group will explore the topic to identify practical actions that individuals, teams, and organisations can take to improve the sustainability of research software and computational workflows.
This session will bring together researchers, research software engineers, HPC specialists and anyone interested in sustainable research computing to map the current landscape and identify what tools and policies are already in place across the sector. The goal is to foster connections, exchange knowledge, identify common needs, and build a broader community of practice around environmentally sustainable research computing.
