EnhanceR Symposium 2026

AI in Scientific Coding Workflows

Timetable

Registration for the event is open from now until Oct 31st, 2026.

Show-and-tell contribution submissions are open until Oct 9th, 2026. You can submit your idea together with your registration. Decision on contributions will be communicated by Oct 30th, 2026.

Event schedule

EnhanceR Symposium 2026 will take place at PSI Villigen on Monday, November 30th, 2026.

This will be a full day, in-person event with a mix of plenary talks and show-and-tell sessions. Current preliminary timetable is available below.

Overview schedule
9:30–10:00 Registration / Coffee
10:00–10:15 Plenary: Welcome
10:15–11:00 Keynote: Keynote 1 (TBC)
11:00–11:15 Coffee Break
11:15–12:15 Show-and-tell parallel sessions
12:15–13:00 Keynote: Keynote 2 (TBC)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00–15:00 Show-and-tell parallel sessions
15:00–15:30 Coffee Break / Networking
15:30–16:15 Keynote: Keynote 3 (TBC)
16:15–17:15 Show-and-tell parallel sessions
17:15–17:30 Plenary: Final Remarks & Farewell

Additionally, there is a 90-minute pre-event tour of the PSI research facilities the day before the Symposium, on Sunday, November 29th, 2026. The number of available spots is limited, so please register early if you're interested in attending.

Keynote talks

Coding Agents and Software Variability: Threats and Opportunities for Replicability in Science (Mathieu Acher)

From Junior to Senior in the Age of AI (April Yi Wang)

AI coding tools are rapidly changing what it means to learn programming and grow as a software engineer. They can generate code, create tests, suggest fixes, explain errors, and answer questions on demand. These capabilities make programming more accessible and productive, but they also raise a deeper educational concern: many of the activities now being automated are precisely the activities through which novices develop expertise. Testing, debugging, decomposing problems, reading others’ code, asking questions, and learning from communities are not merely inefficient steps on the way to an answer; they are practices through which programmers build expertise. In this talk, I'll present a line of research focused on building programming tools that prioritize expertise growth over sheer output. I'll share systems that transform software testing into a peer-learning exercise and frameworks that guide learners and LLMs to break down problems together, rather than jumping straight to auto-generated code. We'll also look at how AI agents shift the balance of control for junior developers, and how chatbots can actually connect people to online coding communities instead of replacing them.

TBD (Cornelius Hempel)