Google Summer of Code (GSoC) Ideas List

[JessicaS11]

icepyx is applying to be a Mentor Organization for the 2026 Google Summer of Code (GSoC)!

We encourage you to check out their rules and guidelines. Our goal in participating in GSoC 2026 is to welcome new contributors to our community of software developers, data experts, and researchers/data users to help us build the next generation of research-enabling open-source software that leverage openly available satellite-based Earth observations. icepyx prides itself on being both an open-source software library AND community.

Project Ideas

Cloud-optimized Data Reads

Design and re-implement the icepyx Read module to leverage cloud optimizations in v007 (the latest release) of ICESat-2 data products (see also:#675, #676).

Title	Data Reads
Difficulty	Medium
Size	175 hours
Expected Outcome	Working code, tests, documentation, and example tutorial
Required Skills	Cloud computing (hub provided), GeoPandas
Potential Impact	Improves ability to work with data in the cloud without expert knowledge of cloud-based formats

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Streamline Spatial Inputs

Streamline and migrate the icepyx Spatial module to live upstream in the earthaccess library, so that the more general earthaccess tooling can take advantage of the flexible and validated user-input process currently employed by icepyx (see also: earthaccess#279, #384). A similar project might streamline the icepyx Temporal module with earthaccess temporal inputs.

Title	Streamline Spatial Inputs
Difficulty	Easy
Size	90 hours
Expected Outcome	Working code, tests, documentation
Required Skills	Geospatial data
Potential Impact	Enables broader community to leverage geospatial tooling that handles cross-dateline bounds

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ICESat-2 Specialty Functions

Build a suite of data-aware functionality to make it easier to work with ICESat-2 data. This could include functions/accessors for tasks like filtering photons, checking quality flags, using only strong beams, etc. and/or UI widgets or visualization shortcuts.

Title	ICESat-2 Specialty Functions
Difficulty	Easy
Size	90 hours (any size possible)
Expected Outcome	Working code, documentation, tests, and examples
Required Skills	Accessors
Potential Impact	Reduces repetitive, common tasks

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New QUESTs

Implement new datasets using the QUEST module to make data integration with closely related datasets easier, saving users valuable time and effort currently spent wrangling and transforming data before getting to data analysis.

Title	New QUESTs
Difficulty	Easy
Size	90 hours
Expected Outcome	Working code, documentation, tests, and example tutorial
Required Skills	Any dataset-specific APIs, subclassing
Potential Impact	Expands use of icepyx to more datasets

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