Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers might satisfy that itch. It’s not for everyone because it’s more of an “ideas driven” story, but I found it to be a very cozy read.

I meant stuff like that discord or the rust discourse. If you aren’t having luck there your best bet is probably sending cold emails to faculty that have expertise in the field you need.

I can’t help with your search but I really think you should look into using Julia instead of rust. It provides excellent speed with the usability of Python and is growing in popularity among the scientific community. There are a few very good Geospatial libraries out there that you would probably find useful too.

Either way I recommend reaching out on the official language communities that tend to have more academics in them.