GSoC 2026 Introduction — Interested in Benchmarking and Performance Optimization (Project 3)

[noir4201]

Hi MDAnalysis community,

My name is Bhuprati, and I'm a 2nd Year EE student interested in applying for GSoC 2026 , specifically Project 3: Benchmarking and Performance Optimization.

I've been exploring the benchmarks repo and noticed that several analysis modules don't yet have ASV benchmark coverage. I've written benchmarks for analysis.align as a first contribution, adding a new file benchmarks/benchmarks/analysis/bench_align.py:
#5298
The benchmarks cover:

• Single frame alignment (all atoms + backbone)
• Mass weighted alignment
• Full trajectory alignment across all frames
• Average structure calculation
  Background: Python, NumPy, C/C++, currently learning Cython.
  Comfortable with performance-sensitive code and profiling workflows.
  Does the team have a preference for which analysis module would
  be most valuable to benchmark next?

Thanks,
Bhuprati
GitHub: noir4201

[orbeckst]

Doing a PR for a new benchmark is a good way to get started! We're pretty busy at the moment with the pre-proposals but someone will also review your PR. (If you submitted a preproposal then we will also have taken your PR into account when evaluating your preproposal.)