Richard Northam
Biography
Richard Northam currently holds the role of node development (NoDe) manager with the Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) Project at the University of Queensland. The RDSI project is a $50 million project funded by the Australian Federal Government that is devoted to enhancing and supporting retention and integration of nationally significant data assets into the national collaboration and data fabric for researchers. Prior to RDSI Richard was the chief executive officer of the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology Inc. (CAUDIT). Richard has more than 25 years' experience in the ICT industry and has worked in the private, federal government and higher education sectors in Australia. He has held a number of senior management appointments including the IT director at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA), network manager at the Federal Insurance and Superannuation Commission, and associate director of the Information Management & Technology Branch at the then Federal Department of Primary Industries & Energy. He also served as the director of Information Systems for the Australian Air Force Cadets within the Australian Department of Defence. Throughout his career, Northam has taken a strategic leadership role in shaping and enhancing the role of information technology within various organizations. In his current role Northam has helped shape the future of CAUDIT as a platform for collaboration for IT staff in higher education and has taken a leadership role in negotiating sector-wide procurement arrangements with suppliers that have delivered significant value to higher education. More recently he has played a key national and international leadership role in enhancing research through the use of new methodologies and development of cyberinfrastructure that are enabled by IT. Northam has also presented at a number of conferences on topics including cloud computing, federated identity access management, IT benchmarking, collaboration, and IT leadership and represented the IT interests of the Australian higher education sector at various international forums and meetings. He recently co-authored an article in EDUCAUSE Review titled “Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose.” Northam holds a bachelor's of engineering (Electronics) and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He lives and works in Canberra, the capital of Australia.EDUCAUSE Presentations
EDUCAUSE Involvement
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EDUCAUSE Board of Directors
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EDUCAUSE Review Online Reviewers