Associate Director for Research Computing (Northwestern University)

One of the top-ranked universities in the country, Northwestern University, combines innovative teaching and pioneering research in a highly collaborative environment that transcends traditional academic boundaries. Northwestern provides students, faculty and staff with exceptional opportunities for intellectual, personal and professional growth.

Job Title: Associate Director for Research Computing
Type: Full Time
Salary: TBD

Position Summary
In cooperation with the Director of Research and Academic Technologies and in consultation with the Office of Vice President for IT, the Associate Director for Research Computing is responsible for major new initiatives and the ongoing support superior computing, storage, consulting and software tools for NU researchers.
The Associate Director for Research Computing is responsible for the development of NUIT’s Research Innovation Center and its ongoing management – a new faculty support center at NU that will provide face-to-face consulting services to NU researchers in high performance computing, in best practices in new visualization and informatics techniques and will serve as a gateway to external computing resources for researchers such as the Blue Waters petascale computer system and to Cloud Computing projects.
The success of the Research Innovation Center will be judged on its ability to help transform research computing practices of faculty and graduate students at the University.

Position Description
Develop and manage the Research Innovation Center at Northwestern University. Make the Research Innovation Center a model center for faculty support services among our peer universities in North America in high performance research computing. Develop requests for funds, work closely with Facilities Management on space and develop department partnerships for expanded capabilities of the Research Innovation Center. 30% Time Spent

Establish effective relations with major external research computing services of importance to NU researchers. Current identified external efforts include the Blue Waters petascale computing effort at NCSA, the San Diego Supercomputing Center and Cloud Computing efforts with Google, Amazon and IBM. Drive the University’s efforts to understand when our researchers can be most successful in their research investigations with the use of external computing resources rather than with (solely) NU-based systems. 20% Time Spent

Prepare grant proposals with NU research teams and with NUIT developers for new research computing systems for the University. Serve as Co-PI or PI on sponsored research projects. Develop strong working relations with USA funding agencies’ program officers, to the advantage of NU research teams and their funded research. 15% Time Spent

Initiate NU faculty planning and advisory teams on NU research efforts. Serve on NUIT research computing task forces and planning committees in a leadership and planning role. Manage developers and engineers in the Research Innovation Center in high performance computing practices and in software development architectures for new research systems. Manage these full-time staff and also contract hires to the highest standards of professionalism in faculty engagement. Conduct campus workshops, campus briefings, NU courses and international conference presentations on NU research computing technologies. Advance the University’s efforts to bring high performance computing practices into graduate students’ courses. 20% Time Spent

Minimum Qualifications
A master’s degree in computer science, engineering, medical science or physical science or the equivalent combination of education, training and experience from which comparable skills can be acquired.
Minimum of 10 years experience in software project management for research computing applications or systems development for research efforts.
Minimum of 5 years experience in managing senior staff at a center or its equivalent for support of research investigators.
Proven track record in writing successful proposals to NSF, NIH, NASA, DOE, MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation or other academic research funding organizations.

To Apply:
Northwestern University offers a comprehensive benefit plan, including tuition discounts. All resumes for this position must be received through the electronic recruiting system. For consideration, please click on the link below. You will be directed to Northwestern University’s electronic recruiting system, eRecruit, where you will search and apply for current openings. To apply for this position in eRecruit, enter the Job Opening ID number in the appropriate search field. Once you apply, you will receive an email confirming submission of your resume. For all resumes received, if there is interest in your candidacy, the human resources recruiter or the department hiring manager will contact you. Job Opening ID number for this position is 13452.

http://www.northwestern.edu/hr/careers

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer.