Senior Director of Scientific Computing and Research Infrastructure

UW School of Medicine and Public Health; Madison (WI); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is seeking a Senior Director of Scientific Computing and Research Infrastructure to lead the computing ecosystem, including HPC, on-premises and cloud platforms, and data stewardship for biomedical and data-intensive research.

Responsibilities include strategy development, governance, security, and cost optimization, with collaboration across faculty, core facilities, IT, and external partners to accelerate discovery while ensuring

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years in scientific computing or enterprise computing environments for research.
• Minimum of 5 years of leadership and personnel management experience.
• Experience supporting biomedical/academic environments via cloud platforms, Linux administration, and container technologies.
• Demonstrated success managing enterprise-scale scientific computing and storage infrastructure.
• Experience leading cloud computing initiatives and hybrid infrastructure environments.

Responsibilities

• Develop a multi-year strategy for scientific computing and data infrastructure.
• Advise leadership on advanced tech including ML/AI for research.
• Direct architecture, operation, and lifecycle of HPC infrastructure.
• Lead enterprise research cloud strategy and hybrid architectures.
• Direct research data infrastructure, storage, backup, and data sharing.
• Establish governance for scalable computing investments.
• Ensure security, privacy, and compliance for research computing.
• Build partnerships with investigators and core facilities.
• Deliver high-quality research computing services and measure ROI.
• Recruit and develop a high-performing computing team.

Skills

Scientific computing

Research infrastructure

Leadership

Cloud platforms

Linux system administration

Container technologies

Cybersecurity & compliance

Education

PhD or terminal degree preferred

Job description

Current Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.

Job Category

Limited

Employment Type

Regular

Job Profile

Research Services Director

Job Summary

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) is looking for a Senior Director of Scientific Computing and Research Infrastructure to provide strategic leadership, operational oversight, and technical direction for the SMPH’s scientific computing ecosystem, including high-performance computing, on-premises and cloud computing platforms, research data storage, scientific software environments, and advanced cyberinfrastructure services for research. This position leads the design, deployment, governance, security, and continuous improvement of computing resources that support biomedical, clinical, translational, population health, and data-intensive research. The Director partners closely with research faculty, data science and informatics programs, core facilities, compliance offices, Information Technology, Cybersecurity and external technology partners to ensure that computing capabilities accelerate scientific discovery while maintaining regulatory compliance, security, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. This position is responsible for developing a sustainable strategy that balances on-premises infrastructure with cloud services to support current and emerging computational research needs across the enterprise.

Essential Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a multi-year strategy and roadmap for scientific computing, research data infrastructure, cloud services, and emerging technologies aligned with institutional research priorities and growth.
• Advise institutional and research leadership on advanced and emerging technologies, including machine learning and AI for research, omics, computational biology and large-scale data science.
• Direct the architecture, operation, capacity planning, and lifecycle management of high-performance computing infrastructure, including clusters, CPU/GPU resources, virtualization, containerization, and scientific software environments.
• Lead enterprise research cloud strategy and hybrid computing architectures across on-premises and cloud platforms, establishing standards for provisioning, governance, security, performance, and cost optimization.
• Direct research data infrastructure and lifecycle management, including high-performance storage, archival, backup, disaster recovery, data sharing, and long-term stewardship consistent with FAIR principles and funding agency requirements.
• Establish governance and investment frameworks for research cyberinfrastructure, ensuring computing, cloud, storage, and data investments are scalable, sustainable, and aligned with institutional priorities and research needs.
• In working with cybersecurity, ensure security, privacy, compliance, and risk management for research computing environments, partnering with institutional stakeholders to address HIPAA, NIH, FDA, NIST, FISMA and other applicable requirements.
• Build strategic partnerships with investigators, research centers, departments, and core facilities, providing consultation and enabling advanced computational approaches for federally funded, industry-sponsored, and other complex research initiatives.
• Ensure high-quality, responsive research computing services, including reliable resource delivery, technical consultation, training, user support, adoption of advanced computational methods, and measurement of utilization and return on investment.
• Recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing scientific computing team, establishing performance and professional development goals while fostering an innovative, collaborative and service-oriented culture.

This position may require some work to be performed in-person, onsite, at a designated campus work location. Some work may be performed remotely, at an offsite, non-campus work location.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Supervises research operations and personnel to ensure compliance and efficiencies
• Formulates and implements program strategies, plans, and goals for a research unit
• Develops effective policies and institutional agreements in alignment with university goals
• Serves as the principal liaison between the program, university leadership, and outside entities
• Develops and executes budgets and costing strategies for products/services in compliance with university and state policies
• Builds a sustained constituency of internal and external stakeholders
• Exercises supervisory authority, including hiring, transferring, suspending, promoting, managing conduct and performance, discharging, assigning, rewarding, disciplining, and/or approving hours worked of at least 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees

Department

School of Medicine and Public Health, Office of Informatics, Informatics Leadership.

Compensation

The starting salary for the position is $130,000 annually; but is negotiable based on experience and qualifications. Employees in this position can expect to receive benefits such as generous vacation, holidays, and sick leave; competitive insurances and savings accounts; retirement benefits. For more information, refer to the campus benefits webpage.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in scientific computing, research infrastructure, or enterprise computing environments for research.
• Minimum of 5 years of leadership and personnel management experience.
• Experience supporting biomedical, academic, healthcare, or research-intensive environments through cloud platforms and services, Linux system administration, and container technologies for research.
• Demonstrated success managing enterprise-scale scientific computing and storage infrastructure.
• Experience leading cloud computing initiatives and hybrid infrastructure environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within an academic medical center, health sciences campus, or research university.
• Experience in or population health/clinical/omics/imaging research utilizing HPC and cloud environments for big data analytics including AI/ML.
• Experience in writing and security grants.
• Experience with NIH data environments and federally regulated research.
• Knowledge of scientific workflow and scheduling platforms and research data repositories.
• Professional certifications in cloud/HPC architecture, cybersecurity, or project management.

Education

PhD or terminal degree preferred; focus in scientific, computational, or a technical discipline preferred.

Contact Information

Cody Roekle, [e-mail] 608-263-7676

Relay Access (WTRS): 7-1-1. See RELAY_SERVICE for further information.

Institutional Statement on Diversity

Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach, and diversity as inextricably linked goals.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background - people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, including but not limited to, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, pregnancy, disability, or status as a protected veteran and other bases as defined by federal regulations and UW System policies. We promote excellence by acknowledging skills and expertise from all backgrounds and encourage all qualified individuals to apply. For more information regarding applicant and employee rights and to view federal and state required postings, visit the Human Resources Workplace Poster website.

To request a disability or pregnancy-related accommodation for any step in the hiring process (e.g., application, interview, pre-employment testing, etc.), please contact the Divisional Disability Representative (DDR) in the division you are applying to. Please make your request as soon as possible to help the university respond most effectively to you.

Employment may require a criminal background check. It may also require your references to answer questions regarding misconduct, including sexual violence and sexual harassment.

The University of Wisconsin System will not reveal the identities of applicants who request confidentiality in writing, except that the identity of the successful candidate will be released. See Wis. Stat. sec. 19.36(7).

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