Duration: 12 months to start
Position Overview:
The client is seeking a Secure Research Computing Consultant to join their Research Computing consulting team for a 1-year contract role.
- This position will focus on supporting the onboarding of research labs into their secure HPC environment, ensuring compliance with relevant security controls, and enabling cutting-edge research in a secure computing environment.
- The consultant will work closely with researchers, IT, and Compliance officers to ensure that data workflows and scientific applications are securely migrated and integrated into the environment.
- The role involves a combination of technical expertise, project coordination, process optimization, and direct engagement with the research community, ensuring that security requirements are met while facilitating seamless research workflows.
- The Research Computing Core is a diverse and collaborative team that coordinates research computing services for the client, its hospital affiliates, and the community.
- Research Computing Consultants (RCCs) are technical resources who translate scientific research needs into computing solutions, optimize workflows, and facilitate access to the client IT resources.
- This contractor role will work alongside the RC team, providing specialized support for secure research environments and compliance with security protocols.
Key Responsibilities:
Project Management, Collaboration, and Compliance
- Work closely with other members of the Research Computing team, IT infrastructure teams, and Compliance o?cers to ensure consistent integration of security requirements into research work?ows.
- Provide ad-hoc project management, including tracking progress, timelines, and deliverables, while facilitating communication across teams.
- Facilitate operational standups to ensure tasks are assigned, executed, and documented in a timely manner.
- Develop, maintain, and continuously improve standardized onboarding checklists, process documentation, and runbooks for secure research workflows.
- Engage with PIs and researchers to gather detailed requirements for data, computational resources, and work?ows to be onboarded, maintained, or optimized in the secure environment.
- Document and analyze existing work?ows, identifying opportunities for optimization and ensuring security compliance during migration to the secure environment.
- Lead and coordinate the onboarding process for new research projects into the secure HPC environment, working closely with the RC team, IT departments, and compliance officers.
- Track the progress of each research project’s onboarding, resolving blockers and collaborating across teams to ensure a smooth and timely transition.
- Partner with the Office of Research Administration, where appropriate, to identity and onboard new projects to the secure HPC environment.
- Work with the labs, RC team, and IT staff to identify and import/export research data into the secure HPC environment.
- Coordinate and, where appropriate, perform installation, configuration, and optimization of necessary scientific software, tools, and computational pipelines while ensuring compliance with relevant security controls (e.g., NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, FISMA, etc.).
- Provide training and support for researchers using the secure HPC environment, helping them understand security protocols and effectively use the resources available.
- Create and maintain user-facing documentation (e.g., onboarding guides, FAQs, quick reference materials) to support self-service and consistent practices.
- Collect feedback from users and stakeholders and incorporate it into continuous improvement of processes and documentation.
- Troubleshoot and provide technical support related to research computing, security compliance, and data migration in the secure environment, escalating issues appropriately.
Basic Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in life sciences, computer science, informatics, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
- At least 2–3 years of experience in a research computing, IT, or data-intensive environment in a role that included coordination of technical work and direct interaction with end users or stakeholders.
- Familiarity with Linux-based or HPC computing environments (e.g., clusters, cloud-based research platforms, or large-scale analytic environments).
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to interact effectively with researchers, IT staff, and compliance officers.
- Demonstrated experience organizing and tracking multi-step technical or data-related projects, including documenting tasks, timelines, and status.
- Proven organizational skills and attention to detail, including maintaining accurate records and following structured processes.
Additional Qualifications
Candidates with one or more of the following will be especially strong matches:
- Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks relevant to research data (e.g., NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, FISMA, HIPAA, data use agreements, IRB requirements).
- Experience with secure research environments, especially in healthcare, academic, or regulated settings (e.g., controlled-access data enclaves, restricted HPC clusters, or secure cloud environments).
- Bioinformatics or life sciences research experience.
- Consulting, facilitation, or customer success experience in research, academic, or healthcare environments, including leading meetings and managing expectations.
- Knowledge of high-performance computing tools and systems (e.g., SLURM job schedulers, modules, workflow managers).
- Ability to quickly adapt to new technologies and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Advanced science or engineering degree preferred.
- Experience with data migration, scienti?c software installation, or HPC is a plus
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