Co-Director, CSC, Head Computation Strategies, California Nanosystems Institute

Position Overview

Position title: Co-Director, CSC, Head of Computation Strategies

Salary range: $120,000-$165,000

Percent time: 100%

Anticipated start: 7/1/26 or later

Position duration: One to three-year appointment with the possibility of renewal.

Open date: June 5, 2026

Next review date: Monday, Jul 20, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time). Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Monday, Aug 31, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time). Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

The California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) at UCSB provides a wide base of infrastructure resources, facilitating collaborative research and education endeavors on the UCSB campus. CNSI’s mission is to catalyze growth and development in research and education. It is planning an aggressive expansion of its programs and facilities. A critical component of this growth is the development of extensive computational tools, leveraging the latest advances in AI as appropriate, to allow optimal acquisition, storage, manipulation, modeling and simulation of all forms of scientific data.

As the science and technology of the fields supported by CNSI develop, the requirements for access to rapid and powerful computational tools will continue to grow. The CNSI is committed to supporting access to state‑of‑the‑art computational environments to the research labs and facilities housed within CNSI and to the broader UCSB campus.

The Center for Scientific Computing (CSC) is housed within CNSI and managed jointly by CNSI and the Materials Research Lab (MRL). CSC provides high performance computing (HPC) hardware and technical expertise to the UCSB research community in both campus‑available and dedicated “condo” clusters. It currently serves approximately 100 campus faculty and 300 individual users, spanning 24 different campus departments and research organizations;

the CSC has been cited over 1,000 times in peer‑reviewed journals.

The Co‑Director serves triple roles as the primary system administrator of these clusters, a research computing consultant, and a partner in the strategic planning of the center. Responsibilities include managing the CSC data center, overseeing a secondary system administrator and a user‑support specialist, writing grants to replace/upgrade HPC resources, organizing quarterly instructional workshops and conferences on HPC topics, ensuring compliance with federal, state and campus regulations, and participating in campus‑wide IT governance through service on various standing and ad‑hoc committees.

The Head of CNSI Scientific Data & Computation Strategies manages computer systems within CNSI’s shared experimental facilities and research laboratories that are integrated with lab equipment and workflows. The Head identifies new technologies and tools to keep CNSI lab capabilities at the cutting edge, works with facilities managers to advance research capabilities, collaborates with other IT groups to provide a seamless IT ecosystem, manages CNSI‑UCSB computing interactions with off‑campus organizations, and develops strategies for integrating AI into CNSI’s research computing infrastructure.

• Lead the CSC as primary system administrator, overseeing hardware, software, and user support.
• Coordinate grant writing and funding proposals for HPC resources.
• Organize workshops and conferences on HPC and research computing topics.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and campus regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Participate in campus IT governance committees.
• Manage secondary system administrator and user‑support specialist.
• Develop and implement computational strategies for CNSI’s experimental facilities.
• Integrate AI solutions into research computing infrastructure.
• Collaborate with off‑campus partners and other IT groups to maintain a seamless IT ecosystem.

Basic qualifications: Master’s degree in a scientific or engineering field or Bachelor’s degree with equivalent experience (five years or more).

Applicants must have…