Associate Vice President, Research Computing and Data - Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR)

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a global leader in research and innovation, invites candidates to apply for the newly created role of Associate Vice President for Research Computing and Data (AVP RCD). This role offers a unique opportunity to elevate and transform CMU's research computing ecosystem, positioning it to better support groundbreaking research, enhance collaboration, and enable leading-edge innovation across the university's research enterprise. After careful study, CMU has committed to significant investment in research computing resources, forming the Office of Research Computing and Data to design, develop, and oversee this initiative.

The AVP for Research Computing and Data will spearhead the creation, operationalization, and long-term advancement of a leadership-class research computing and data ecosystem, providing the strategic vision, institutional coordination, and execution required to build and sustain this effort. Reporting to the Vice President for Research, with a dotted line to the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, the AVP RCD will foster collaboration across research, academic, administrative, and IT domains. This role is vital to enabling CMU's faculty and students to operate at the pinnacle of innovation, discovery, and translation, fostering a community of excellence that empowers research, learning, talent development, and societal engagement.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

Strategic Leadership

• Define and execute a university-wide vision for leadership-class research computing and data that aligns with CMU's mission and strategic goals as a world-leading computing and AI university.
• Expand upon scalable, sustainable models for service delivery, funding, and resourcing.
• Define CMU's engagement with Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center in terms of complementary investments and synergies.
• Represent the university in national and international research computing communities, such as the Campus Research Computing Consortium.
• Partner with the Office of Government Relations in engaging with local, state, and federal officials, and Business Engagement Center to expand strategic industry partnerships.

Innovation and Infrastructure

• Lead the expansion of CMU research computing to best-in-class levels, including advanced capabilities in cloud integration and specialized hardware utilization.
• Develop a roadmap for translational computing that fosters innovative architectures and services that may be scaled across CMU researchers and, potentially, beyond the immediate CMU ecosystem.
• Oversee the deployment of emerging technologies such as AI accelerators and machine learning frameworks, advanced engineering platforms, and next-gen physics simulations capabilities.
• Partner with external organizations and vendors to bring cutting-edge solutions to campus.
• Ensure the security, reliability, and scalability of research computing infrastructure to meet the demands of current and future research.
• Optimize a multi-year approach to balancing on-premises resources and cloud resources with attention to all factors and ramifications of the approach including sustainability.
• Continue to develop cyberinfrastructure suited to researchers across all of CMU.
• Lead the design, build-out, and operational maturation of controlled research data and computing environments across cloud and on-premises platforms, including the policies, technical safeguards, service models, and cross-campus coordination required to support compliant research at scale.

Research Collaboration

• Act as the primary liaison for research computing and data across CMU's colleges, ensuring alignment with and engagement across diverse disciplinary needs.
• Actively participate in the development of competitive proposals for external funding opportunities.
• Consult with stakeholders across the university and with partners at PSC to develop an operating model for leadership-class computing resources that enshrines a strategic and equitable approach to ongoing development and refresh, access and utilization, funding model, and user policy.
• Collaborate with university stakeholders to identify emerging trends and technologies in research computing and data; develop strategies to leverage new technologies for research capabilities.
• Establish and maintain user support mechanisms to assist researchers in effectively utilizing the research-computing resource

Data Governance

• Build the capacity to support research involving controlled/restricted data. Ensure CMU adapts and responds to changing regulatory paradigms and competes for funding across a broad spectrum of regulated/restricted research.
• Collaborate with the Information Security Office and Research Security Office to develop and implement policies and procedures governing the use of research computing resources, ensuring the infrastructure meets stringent security and compliance standards.
• Collaborate with campus stakeholders to develop a data collection management and governance structure that supports faculty and researchers by providing data collection services and consulting across the full data lifecycle--from creation to long-term preservation and access, including protected health data and other forms of controlled data.
• Ensure the application of best practices in data management and sharing, including promoting the adoption of the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) principles to enhance the transparency and accessibility of scientific results.

Collaboration and Representation

• Work closely with academic leaders, faculty, and administrative offices to ensure research computing partnerships align with internal capabilities and enhance the University's reputation and reach.
• Build effective internal communication channels as well as resources that help faculty and staff identify, pursue, and manage partnership opportunities.
• Represent the University externally at conferences, corporate, or industry forums to position CMU as a preferred partner in research, innovation, and societal impact.
• Build, supervise, and mentor a team of research computing professionals; promote a collaborative and service-oriented culture.
• Serve as a key connector between internal and external stakeholders, fostering trust, transparency, and shared success in all internal and external partnership activities.

COMPETENCIES

This leadership position requires proven management and strategic leadership skills, with exemplary communication skills to lead research computing development and coordination across the university's colleges and programs. The AVP RCD will be an entrepreneurial domain expert with a combination of vision, organizational savvy, skill in generating resources and leading change, and the emotional intelligence to build partnerships and create alignment across organizational boundaries. In addition, the AVP RCD should demonstrate:

Leadership and Vision

• Comprehensive grasp of current standards and emerging paradigms in high-performance computing to guide the university's investment of capital and operating funds in leadership-class computing.
• Proven ability to recruit and lead a team in developing and implementing large-scale, cross-functional initiatives in complex, decentralized environments
• Ability to develop the business model for sustainable leadership-class computing and manage a complex budget comprising multiple funding sources and time horizons, and comprising capital and operating budgets (grants, partnerships).
• Skills needed to create and lead a large-scale initiative in a federated academic environment by integrating existing resources and identifying and developing new ones.
• Experience building sustainable partnerships across organizational boundaries, including with external partners.
• Ability to engage sponsors, funders, advisors, donors, and elected officials in support of advancing CMU's research computing vision.
• Familiarity with and participation in the national research-computing and HPC ecosystem.

Technical Acumen

• Broad knowledge of deployment and management of High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems, including CPU, GPU, storage, file systems, networking, visualization, job schedulers, and scientific applications.
• Understanding of specific technologies relevant to HPC applications such as AI, training, inferences, simulations, digital twins, and quantum.
• Experience leading the implementation and execution of research computing capabilities and day-to-day HPC systems operations.
• Ability to continuously adapt and expand research computing capabilities to support computationally intensive research, emerging scientific and engineering needs from faculty and researchers, and educational activities.
• Experience addressing the facilities requirements needed to support research computing infrastructures.
• Demonstrated understanding of data security, compliance, and export-control standards and regulations and ability to address information security frameworks to ensure compliant research involving controlled/restricted data.
• Knowledge of and experience promoting policies and processes to facilitate appropriate access, storage, use, and sharing of data.

Research Collaboration

• Demonstrated ability to engage with academic researchers across a wide range of disciplines and comfort levels, from midrange to super users.
• Record of contributing to successful funding proposals and business-development initiatives.
• Ability to manage change and implement innovative solutions involving external partnerships (e.g., with industry, federal agencies, foundations, and other institutions)
• Demonstrated consulting and customer-service skills to sustain engagement with faculty, students, and staff across the academic disciplines.

QUALIFICATIONS

• This leadership position requires proven management and strategic leadership skills, with exemplary communication skills to lead research computing development and coordination across the university's colleges and programs. The AVP RCD will be an entrepreneurial domain expert with a combination of vision, organizational savvy, skill in generating resources and leading change, and the emotional intelligence to build partnerships and create alignment across organizational boundaries.
• The successful candidate will have a master's degree, with a PhD preferred, and 10 or more years of experience in research computing, with demonstrated success in leadership roles. A combination of education and relevant experience from which comparable knowledge is demonstrated may be considered.