acaird@gmail.com

Experience

2004–present Director of High Performance Computing University of Michigan College of Engineering Ann Arbor, MI

Responsible for high-performance research computing operations for the University of Michigan.

  • I supervise seven direct staff and coordinate with many other IT staff, administrators, and researchers at the University of Michigan (including in Engineering, Sciences, Medicine, Mathematics, Public Policy, and the central IT group) in support of researchers' advanced computing needs
  • I participate in strategic and tactical planning for high-performance and data analytics computing hardware, software, storage, networking, third-party services, and licensing and compliance in support of the research mission of the College of Engineering and the University
  • I designed and guided the implementation a shared high-performance computing service for U-M that integrates with U-M business processes, comprises over 12,000 compute cores and supports almost 200 U-M research projects
  • I am a member of the IT Steering Committee chaired by the Executive Director of Information Technology for the College of Engineering
  • I am a member of a team who has operated five different high-performance computing systems over the past eight years, and have guided the retirement and consolidation of older systems into two more efficient systems, including a 5,500 core cluster in Engineering
2003–2004 Email and Unix Administrator Fox Chase Cancer Center Philadelphia, PA

Responsible for Unix-based email system for researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

  • I successfully migrated over 800 active email users from two older IMAP email servers to one upgraded and consolidated IMAP email server.
  • I was responsible for sendmail-based gateways and associated anti-virus and anti-spam filters.
2002–2003 Unix and Network Administrator Forest Health Services Ypsilanti, MI

Responsible for Unix and Networking at a private multi-clinic specialty health-care provider.

  • I was responsible for systems supporting Lawson financial and human resources software and for systems supporting Oracle-based CRM software
  • I was responsible for Veritas NetBackup on Solaris that managed backups of HR and financial data, CRM data, patient data from VMS systems, staff home directories on Windows and Novell, and email from Exchange 5.5 and 2000 servers
  • I was responsible for a Cisco-based LAN and WAN, including T1 and Frame Relay links, site-to-site and roaming-user VPNs, including carrier relationship management, WAN expansion, and network monitoring
2000–2002 Information Technology Manager PGAM / Uniphied Thought Dearborn, MI
  • I was one of a team of two responsible for support a CAD and office computing environment in four locations around metropolitan Detroit
  • I was responsible for the systems infrastructure, including backups (Legato Networking and HP Omniback), operating systems (HP-UX, Irix, Windows, Solaris, and Linux), voice and data networking between locations, and email, web, and DNS services
  • I was one of a team of two responsible for the design and implementation of all of the IT infrastructure for a combined office and factory environment in a newly built building
1998–2000 Unix and Network Systems Engineer Mechanical Dynamics Ann Arbor, MI
  • I was a member of a three-person team responsible for designing and implementing a network in a new building
  • I was responsible for supporting over 120 end-user UNIX workstations and UNIX servers and contributed to the network security policies and their implementation for the company
1997–1998 Systems and Network Engineer Transom Technologies Ann Arbor, MI
  • I was responsible for installing and maintaining SGI IRIX, Linux, Windows 95, and Windows NT Workstation and Server operating systems in a dynamic, ``start-up company'' atmosphere with about 30 employees
  • I was responsible for network security, including a packet-filtering router and security patches on SGI and Linux systems
  • I maintained MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases, database clients (Web, Java, and Microsoft Access), database design, and client design and programming for bug tracking, call tracking, hardware inventory, and customer and lead information
1994–1997 Systems Research Programmer II University of Michigan College of Engineering Ann Arbor, MI
  • I was the sole full-time system administrator for the three UNIX-based massively parallel computers at the University of Michigan's Center for Parallel Computing: a 16 processor Silicon Graphics PowerChallenge; a 48 node IBM SP2; a 32 processor HP/Convex Exemplar SPP-1600

Invited Talks

Nov 2013
Flux: The State of the Cluster; University of Michigan CyberInfrastructure Days, Ann Arbor, MI
Nov 2012
Flux: The State of the Cluster; University of Michigan CyberInfrastructure Days, Ann Arbor, MI
Apr 2012
Using Gold, Moab, and Torque to Run a Campus-wide Allocation-based HPC Service; MoabCon 2012, Park City, UT
Nov 2011
High-Performance Computing at the University of Michigan: CIRRUS Flux; University of Michigan—Dearborn; Research Faculty Meeting, Dearborn, MI
Sep 2009
Moab, TORQUE, and Gold in a Heterogeneous, Federated Computing System at the University of Michigan; MoabCon 2009, Provo, UT
Oct 2006
High-Performance Computing at The University of Michigan College of Engineering; Big10 Engineering IT Conference; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

More information on talks, including slides, is at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~acaird

Education

1993–1996 M.S., Nuclear Engineering University of Michigan
1989–1993 B.S., Nuclear Engineering University of Michigan