SFU Research Computing Summer School 2026

This year's program offers a hands-on introduction to essential tools and concepts in modern scientific computing & data-intensive research.

Overview

This in-person summer school is offered by SFU’s Research Computing Group on behalf of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. It is hosted by SFU’s Big Data Hub and is open to all researchers at SFU and other Canadian post-secondary institutions.

Each day we will have morning (9:30 or 10am – 12:30pm) and afternoon (1:30m – 4:30pm) sessions, with a visit of the Fir supercomputer on Tuesday starting at 8:30am.

You can register for the full program for $50, or choose specific days at $15 per day. All sessions will be in-person at SFU Burnaby campus, in SFU’s Big Data Hub Presentation Studio (Applied Sciences Building, ASB 10900).

To participate in the hands-on exercises, you will need to bring your own laptop. We will provide guest accounts on our HPC training cluster. For more specific requirements, please see the individual course pages.

*Please note that tickets are non-refundable (full refunds issued if course is cancelled)

What You Will Learn

This year's program offers a hands-on introduction to essential tools and concepts in modern scientific computing and data-intensive research, with an emphasis on efficient, reproducible, and scalable workflows. Through a combination of guided instruction and practical sessions, attendees will develop the skills needed to navigate computational environments, manage and optimize research code, and harness the power of high-performance computing.

Course Syllabus

Monday, June 1:

• 9:30 am - 12:30 pm - Unix Shell
• 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm - HPC

Tuesday, June 2:

• 8:30 am - 10:00 am - Fir Tour
• 10:00 am - 4:30 pm - High Performance Computing

Wednesday, June 3:

• 9:30 am - 12:30 pm - Version Control with Git
• 1:30pm - 4:30pm - R optimizations

Thursday, June 4:

• 9:30 am - 12:30 pm - Python Polars
• 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm - Parallel Programming

Friday, June 5:

• 9:30 am - 4:30 pm - Accelerated Python

Times are in PT

Instructors

Alex Razoumov

Research Solutions Lead, SFU's Research Computing Group

Marie-Hélène Burle

Research Solutions Specialist, SFU's Research Computing Group

Why Choose SFU?

Taught By Leading Experts

Our instructors, who have decades of experience in both development and state-of-the-art research, will teach you in-demand skills, approaches, concepts and tools.

Experiential Learning

Gain hands-on experience working on complex problems, ensuring the knowledge you gained in this course can be directly applied to the real-world.

Get Real-Time Feedback

This interactive course is taught in person, enabling real-time feedback and encouraging you to build connections with your peers.

Prerequisites

Please visit the program page to review prerequisites for each session.

Questions?

Please contact sfu_bigdata@sfu.ca if you have any questions.