Executive Director, Research Computing and Informatics

Job Description

The Executive Director, Research Computing & Informatics, leads the development and delivery of research-focused IT services, with a focus on HPC, AI/ML, and cyberinfrastructure. Reporting to the Chief Academic Officer, they bridge technical capabilities with the academic community.

• Strategic Leadership & Vision:
• Develops and leads a comprehensive strategy for research computing, HPC, and AI/ML platforms aligned with institutional research priorities and academic goals.
• Translates institutional research priorities into computing capabilities supporting omics, imaging, clinical data analytics, simulation, and AI/ML workloads.
• Establishes a sustainable, scalable ecosystem for advanced computing and AI-enabled research, supporting modeling, simulation, data analytics, and machine learning workloads.
• Advices the Chief Academic Officer and administrative leadership on trends, opportunities, and risks related to research IT, HPC, AI/ML, and cyberinfrastructure.
• Integrates principles of responsible, ethical, and transparent AI into research computing strategy and operations.
• HPC Core Leadership & Delivery:
• Leads the implementation, operation, and continuous evolution of the HPC Core, ensuring enterprise-grade reliability, scalability, performance, and secure access.
• Manages the HPC Core as a viable and sustainable service for the research community, balancing performance, access, and cost.
• Establishes governance, access models, service tiers, and support frameworks for shared HPC and AI/ML resources.
• Promotes best practices in research software engineering, reproducibility, workflow automation, and MLOps.
• Clinical Trials & AI Enablement:
• Drives early HPC and AI/ML use cases that strengthen clinical trial recruitment, including AI-enhanced cohort discovery and analytics.
• Partners with clinical informatics and data teams to support large-scale querying and analysis of enterprise clinical datasets, including millions of patients, encounters, and clinical notes.
• Ensures strict protection of PHI and regulated data through secure computing environments, governance controls, and compliance-aligned architectures.
• Works closely with institutional AI/LLM governance bodies to ensure responsible, ethical, and compliant deployment of advanced analytics and AI workflows.
• Research Engagement & Enablement:
• Serves as the senior point of contact for investigators, core facilities, and translational research programs seeking advanced computational and AI-enabled support.
• Ensures equitable access to HPC resources for early-stage investigators as well as large, data-intensive research programs.
• Delivers early insights and demonstrable value from biomedical discovery and translational research use cases.
• Supports grant competitiveness by documenting HPC and AI/ML capabilities, advising on computational feasibility, and aligning infrastructure with sponsor expectations.
• Establishes and leads training and onboarding programs to enable effective researcher access and adoption of HPC and AI platforms.
• Architecture, Operations & Security:
• Oversees HPC and research computing architecture across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, including GPU-accelerated systems.
• Ensures enterprise-grade operations, including system monitoring, patching, lifecycle management, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and capacity planning.
• Maintains close alignment with BILH IT System Services on facilities, power, cooling, networking, and physical and cyber security of high-value computing assets.
• Promotes best practices in research software engineering, reproducibility, workflow automation, and MLOps.
• Governance, Strategy & Partnerships:
• Contributes to institutional governance related to research computing, data science, and AI strategy.
• Advises senior academic, research, and clinical leadership on trends, risks, and investment opportunities in HPC, AI/ML, and cyberinfrastructure.
• Represents the institution in external initiatives and partnerships, including regional and national efforts such as the Massachusetts AI Hub.
• Engages industry partners and vendors in ways that accelerate research while protecting patient data, institutional interests, and academic independence.
• Financial & Team Management:
• Manages HPC operating and capital budgets, vendor relationships, refresh cycles, and long-term capacity planning.
• Implements transparent usage, allocation, and cost models that balance sustainability with broad and equitable access.
• Builds, mentors, and leads a multidisciplinary HPC and research computing team spanning infrastructure, storage, security, and investigator-facing support.
• Fosters a culture of collaboration, service excellence, and continuous learning.

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree (PhD, MD, or equivalent experience) in a computational, biomedical, engineering, data science, or other data-intensive discipline.
• Leadership experience directing high-performance or large-scale research computing in an academic medical center or comparable environment.
• Demonstrated experience supporting data-intensive biomedical and clinical research and working directly with investigators.
• Strong understanding of secure computing environments for sensitive, regulated, or clinical data (e.g., PHI).
• Proven ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to non-technical faculty, clinical leaders, and executive stakeholders.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional teams and complex, enterprise-scale initiatives.

Desirable Qualifications

• Direct experience of biomedical research activities.
• Direct experience with AI/ML or LLM-based systems applied to clinical or translational research.
• Experience integrating research computing platforms with EMR-adjacent or clinical data systems.
• Track record of contributing to institutional infrastructure strategy or large-scale research initiatives.
• Familiarity with governance models for AI, data access, and enterprise research computing.

Pay Range

$225,000.00 USD – $295,000.00 USD