WHPC Ireland Chapter Update 2024-2026
WHPC Ireland was founded as a chapter of WHPC in November 2024. Our “Stronger Together” launch event was held in Dublin in March 2025, which brought together around 80 attendees from industry, academia, and research for keynote talks, panel discussions, wellbeing training, and networking.
WHPC Ireland attended the NI-HPC User Conference at Queen’s University Belfast on 4th November, where we participated in a session on Responsible AI. The session highlighted how underrepresented groups, including women, are making significant contributions in the HPC and AI space. A panel discussion brought together diverse viewpoints on some topics around HPC, green computing, and industry. WHPC Ireland also organised a networking dessert club within the NI-HPC user conference to provide space for networking, chats, and inspiration. We were also delighted to present Zeinab Abdelrahman, PhD a well-deserved WHPC Ireland Poster Award, sponsored by our partner nAG, at the NI-HPC User Conference 2025. Zeinab received this award during our WHPC Ireland Dessert Club event, with Sara El Jadid recognised as runner-up.
A chapter update was presented at ISC 2025 on 10th June, Hamburg as part of WHPC technical talks and at the WHPC breakfast at CIUK Manchester on 4th of December in conjunction with the WHPC UK & Ireland chapters. Urooj Asgher, PhD student from TU Diblin has also been selected as an Early Career Speaker for the WHPC Breakfast event on December 5th 2025 at CIUK, highlighting her research impact within the community.
In early 2026, we contributed to a session at TU Dublin’s HPC infrastructure launch event and gathered community feedback through a Mentimeter survey, which highlighted strong interest in in-person conference talks, technical workshops, and networking events.
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2026, we hosted our first virtual Morning Tea, featuring a guest speaker Vicky Twomlee who is a respected leader in Ireland’s tech community and widely known for her commitments to diversity and inclusion.
WHPC Ireland chapter was represented by Dr. Buket Benek Gursoy at EUROGI Women in Geospatial Ireland Chapter Webinar in April 2026, PyLadies Ireland Meet-up in April 2026, Invited Talk in Hands-on Training with HPC: Scalable Plant Phenotyping with Supercomputers by NTNU in May 2026, and in the 25th Anniversary of the Hamilton Institute, Maynooth University in June 2026.
WHPC Ireland had a great time at ISC26 in Hamburg. They attended many events focussing on networking, community building, moderating and promoting greater diversity and inclusion. They also helped at the exhibition stands at ICHEC and Universities of the UK.
Testimonials from students:
Zeinab Abdelrahman: “I was honoured to receive the Women in HPC (WHPC) Best Poster Award at the NI-HPC 2025 Conference Through WHPC Ireland Chapter for my poster, Accelerating Multi-Omics Analysis with High-Performance Computing. Winning this award was a significant milestone in my research journey and opened the door for me to participate in ISC 2026 in Hamburg, Germany, one of the world's leading high-performance computing conferences. Presenting my work to an international audience was an invaluable experience that increased the visibility of my research and highlighted the role of HPC in accelerating multi-omics discovery.”
Urooj Asgher: “Being part of the WHPC Ireland Chapter has given me valuable opportunities to connect with the wider HPC community and showcase my research. Through the chapter, I had the opportunity to present at the CIUK25 Women in HPC Breakfast, which helped me build confidence, expand my professional network, and gain greater visibility for my work. I appreciate the supportive environment and the opportunities the chapter provides for researchers to grow and engage with the HPC community.”
