Kokkos User Group Meeting 2026 Program Announced
Posted on January 26, 2026 • 5 min read • 896 words
Kokkos User Group (KUG) 2026: Main Program Schedule Now Live!
We are thrilled to announce that the Main Program schedule for the Kokkos User Group (KUG) 2026 is now available! Prepare for two days packed with in-depth sessions, insightful discussions, and networking opportunities with the Kokkos community.
What to Expect:
Eight 90-minute sessions featuring a mix of Kokkos developers and community users.
Day 1 Highlights:
- Kick off with essential updates from the Kokkos team.
- Explore real-world applications in the Kokkos in Applications session.
- Gain practical insights on Adopting Kokkos.
- Discuss experiences in training and teaching with members of the community and Kokkos developers during the Panel Discussion on Training.
Day 2 Highlights:
- Dive into the broader Kokkos ecosystem with talks from affiliated projects.
- Learn more about how to mix Kokkos and Fortran
- Master performance optimization in the Tuning and Performance session.
- Conclude the event with a dynamic User Feedback Session
Stay Tuned: While the majority of the program is published, we’re finalizing a few details. Please check back for any minor adjustments.
A Heartfelt Thank You:
We extend our sincere gratitude to the Program Committee, our dedicated speakers, and all the users who submitted proposals.
Join Us!
Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the Kokkos community, learn from experts, and contribute to the future of high-performance computing. KUG 2026 is just around the corner!
Register Now and secure your spot today.
2026 Program
| Time | Thursday, March 19, 2026 | Friday, March 20, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am-10:20am | Introduction (Christian Trott SNL) | Kokkos Session (Nicolas Morales SNL) |
| 10:45am-12:05pm | Kokkos in Applications (Nevin Liber ANL) | Kokkos and Fortran (Patrick Diehl LANL) |
| 1:35pm-3:15pm | Adopting Kokkos (Conrad Clevenger SNL) | Tuning and Performance (Daniel Arndt ORNL) |
| 3:40pm-5:00pm | Teaching and Training (Jakob Bludau ORNL) | User Feedback (Damien Lebrun-Grandie ORNL) |
Sessions Content
Introduction
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am-9:20am | Welcome and overview | TBD |
| 9:20am-9:40am | Update on the Ecosystem and Community | TBD |
| 9:40am-10:00am | Kokkos Core updates | TBD |
| 10:00am-10:20am | Kokkos-Kernels updates | TBD |
Kokkos in Applications
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 10:45am-11:05am | Multi-GPU Radiative Transport in Participating Media with Kokkos | Nicolas Tricard (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| 11:05am-11:25am | UmpireSpace - The Kokkos Memory Space You’ve Always Wanted | Kristi Belcher (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) |
| 11:25am-11:35am | Optimizing Compact Difference Schemes for High-Order CFD with Kokkos | Sana Nazir (Purdue University) |
| 11:35am-11:45am | Exploring Kokkos performance for many-species particle systems with CabanaPD | Sam Reeve (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) |
| 11:45am-12:05am | A Portable Data Interpolation Library using Kokkos and ArborX | Ramzi Messahel (Safran) |
Adopting Kokkos
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 1:35pm-1:55pm | Lessons Learned Porting Vector Particle-In-Cell to Performance Portable SIMD | Nigel Tan (Los Alamos National Laboratory) |
| 1:55pm-2:15pm | Kokkos-MOOSE: Planning the Future of MOOSE on Accelerators | Namjae Choi (Idaho National Laboratory) |
| 2:15pm-2:35pm | Kokkos in the deal.II Finite Element Library | Timo Heister (Clemson University) |
| 2:35pm-2:55pm | HARD: A Performance Portable Multiphysics Code based on FleCSI Framework | Hyun Lim (Los Alamos National Laboratory) |
| 2:55pm-3:15pm | Pythonizing PyKokkos | Ivan Grigorik (The University of Texas at Austin) |
Teaching and Training
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 3:40pm-3:50pm | Teaching domain scientists enough C++ for accelerators using their python or R proficiency | Pariksheet Nanda (University of Pittsburgh) |
| 3:50pm-4:00pm | How Hard is it to Transition a Team of Fortran Developers to Kokkos? | Daniel Holladay (Los Alamos National Laboratory) |
| 4:00pm-5:00pm | Panel Discussion on Teaching/Training | TBD |
Kokkos Session
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am-9:20am | kokkos-FFT updates | Yuuichi Asahi (CEA) |
| 9:20am-9:40am | Towards More Efficient MDRangePolicy Execution | Hariprasad Kannan (CEA) |
| 9:40am-10:00am | Build and Packaging WG: How do I get the Kokkos I want with minimal effort | Jakob Bludau (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) |
| 10:00am-10:20am | Neuromorphic integration into the Kokkos ecosystem | Bradley Theilman (Sandia National Laboratories) |
Kokkos and Fortran
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 10:45am-11:05am | Kokkos-Fortran-Interop | Bruno Turcksin (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) |
| 11:05am-11:25am | Automatic Translation of Fortran to Kokkos | Brayden Wagoner (Los Alamos National Laboratory) |
| 11:25am-11:45am | Utilizing a Kokkos-based dynamical core in a Fortran-based Earth system model | Jian Sun (NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research) |
| 11:45am-12:05am | Porting a Fortran Plasma Simulation to Exascale on AMD GPUs Using Both OpenMP and Kokkos | Etienne Malaboeuf (CINES) |
Tuning and Performance
| Time | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 1:35pm-1:55pm | Hardware-Aware Tiling for Performance-Portable Spectral Element Kernels | Rohit Kakodkar (Princeton University) |
| 1:55pm-2:05pm | Runtime Auto-Tuning for Large-scale Distributed Kokkos Applications on HPC Systems | Vivek Kale (Sandia National Laboratories) |
| 2:05pm-2:15pm | Events for Kokkos | Jonathan Wong (NVIDIA corporation) |
| 2:15pm-2:25pm | Portable Low Latency In-Kernel Inferencing of Small Neural Networks with Kokkos | Matthew Norman (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) |
| 2:25pm-2:35pm | Improvements to the KOKKOS package in LAMMPS | Trung Nguyen (University of Chicago) |
| 2:35pm-2:55pm | Scalability and Performance Optimization for ExaCA | Matt Rolchigo (Oak Ridge National Laboratories) |
| 2:55pm-3:15pm | A RangePolicy Compatible Per Iteration Scratch Memory Implementation | Daniel Holladay (Los Alamos National Laboratory) |
User Feedback Session
| Time | Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| 3:40pm-5:00pm | User Feedback Session | TBD |
Join us for a dynamic user feedback session at the Kokkos User Group meeting, bringing together core Kokkos developers, library leads, ecosystem project members, application experts, numerical toolkit developers, and educators. We’ll give you the chance to share your experience using Kokkos, as well as your successes, challenges and future expectations. This is your opportunity to engage with the community, ask questions, and help shape the future direction of Kokkos. Come be a part of the conversation that drives what’s next!
Kokkos in general poster session (Monday, March 16, 2026, 5:05pm-7:05pm)
| Time | Topic | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 5:05pm-7:05pm | Re-architecting VPIC-Kokkos I/O: Migrating from Legacy Binary to Adaptive HDF5 Workflows | Connor Browne (The University of Tennessee Knoxville) |
Program Committee:
- Conrad Clevenger, SNL, Technical Programm Committee Chair
- Jakob Bludau, ORNL
- Daniel Arndt, ORNL
- Luc Berger-Vergiat, SNL
- Paul Gannay, CEA
- Damien Lebrun-Grandie, ORNL
- Trévis Morvany, CEA