Welcoming Michael Zentner to Advisory Committee and thank you to Nancy Wilkins-Diehr

With the retirement of Nancy Wilkins-Diehr, we thank her for her years of service on the Trusted CI Advisory Committee. Her guidance and the collaboration with the Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI) she led have been instrumental to Trusted CI’s success.
Michael Zentner is succeeding Nancy as PI of SGCI, and we’re happy to announce that the collaboration between Trusted CI and SGCI will continue. Michael will be replacing Nancy on Trusted CI’s Advisory Committee and we extend a warm welcome to him. 

About Michael: Michael Zentner is the Director for Sustainable Scientific Software at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the Director of the HUBzero® project, , co-PI on the nanoHUB.org project (a science gateway serving over 1.4 million visitors annually), and is transitioning into the Director role of the SGCI.  In this combined role, Michael focuses on new innovations in cyberinfrastructure and science gateways, as well as sustainability models for such gateways and other scientific software.  Michael’s background consists of 9 years in academic settings advancing data analytics and cyberinfrastructure software, as well as 18 years of entrepreneurial experience in creating sustainable business models for software and applying technology based software solutions in Fortune 500 companies tor supply chain optimization, data analytics, and collaboration.  Michael holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and dual MBAs in International Business from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and the TIAS School for Business and Society in Tilburg, Netherlands.

Welcoming Eric Cross to the Trusted CI Advisory Committee

I am happy to welcome Eric Cross to the Trusted CI Advisory Committee. Eric is the Information Technology Manager for the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Boulder, Colorado, and has in the past served in the same role at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Raytheon Company. During his time at the NSO, he has played key roles in major projects including moving the organization to cloud-based collaboration applications via Google GSuite, deploying IT services at a newly constructed facility for Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) support and science research staff, and managing the procurement and deployment of the DKIST Operations Network and IT infrastructure at the Haleakalā summit on the island of Maui, Hawai’i.

Eric replaces David Halstead of NRAO on the advisory committee. I thank David for his contributions to Trusted CI on the committee.

Jim Basney
Deputy Director, Trusted CI

CTSC welcomes two leading CIOs to its Advisory Committee

We are very pleased to welcome new members to the CTSC Advisory Committee:

Dr. David Halstead is the CIO for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by AUI, where his responsibilities are divided between Data Management for the Observatory’s HPC infrastructure in support of the national radio telescopes, and the general IT support for 500+ employees. He has served on multiple SuperComputing Conference committees and is a founding member of the ACM’s SIGHPC Education Chapter. Prior to joining NRAO, he worked in the DOE Scalable Computing Laboratory in Ames Lab, and in the private sector with Celera Genomics.  

Dr. Melissa Woo is the Senior Vice President for Information Technology (IT) and Chief Information Officer at Stony Brook University. Prior to joining Stony Brook University, Melissa was the Vice Provost for Information Services and Chief Information Officer at the University of Oregon. Melissa has also worked for the central IT organizations at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign leading and supporting a number of areas, including research cyberinfrastructure, enterprise IT services, and IT operations and infrastructure.

David and Melissa join a committee that consists of Tom Barton of the University of Chicago, Neil Chue Hong of the UK Software Sustainability Institute, Nicholas Multari of Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL), and Nancy Wilkins-Diehr of the San Diego Supercomputing Center.

Both David and Melissa bring key expertise and experiences to the advisory committee. David, as CIO of NRAO, has the perspective of an NSF Large Facilities and the cybersecurity challenges they face in supporting research. Melissa, as CIO at Stony Brook, brings a wealth of experience in higher education IT and the key role it has supporting research nationally.

We thank both David and Melissa for joining the CTSC Advisory Board and look forward to working closely with them to support research and science cybersecurity challenges.

We also take this opportunity to thank Don Middleton of NCAR for his service on the Advisory Committee and wish him well in retirement.