Research Computing Office
Science is now a fully digital enterprise, with exponentially increasing scientific data; more powerful computational capabilities; revolutionary analytical modalities, including AI; and increasing regulatory and security concerns. Success in research computing is central to the research mission, strategy and operations as UMass Chan continues to grow.
The Research Computing Office was established to meet the needs of researchers in addressing challenges in a rapidly changing research environment.
The office works to ensure that our research community, including scientific labs and core facilities, have scalable, facile, secure and sustainable computational and data resources that anticipate the needs of our scientists.
The Research Computing Office is at the intersection of science, strategic planning and organizational excellence and works to ensure that UMass Chan can achieve its science objectives and prepare for the future. We fulfill this mission through listening, thoughtful planning, and strong partnerships across the research community, information technology, administration, sponsors and external partners.
Who we are
William Barnett, PhD, is the inaugural chief research computing officer at UMass Chan. He has an extensive background in research computing, including strategic planning, governance and institutional leadership; high performance computing; biomedical research; instrument-generated research; research with regulated data; research databases; research software; and information systems security.
Dr. Barnett came to UMass Chan from Harvard Medical School, where he oversaw the research computing group, supporting their extensive research mission, and partnering across Harvard on strategic and collaborative research computing initiatives. Previously he was at Indiana University and the Indiana University School of Medicine, providing high performance computing applications, technical support for clinical trials recruitment and management, and serving as the CIO of the precision medicine initiative.
What we do
Partnership with the research mission
Participates with faculty and the research and informatics communities (specifically the chief research informatics officer) to identify opportunities to advance the research mission through computational and data services, resources and facilities.
Collaboration with administration and service organizations
The Research Computing Office collaborates closely with IT, the Lamar Soutter Library and UMass Chan administration to optimize and align research computing and data services to advance the research mission.
Strategic Planning
Dr. Barnett is charged with creating the first strategic plan for research computing, an integral part of the next 5-year institutional strategic plan.
Basic Science IT Subcommittee
Dr. Barnett co-chairs, with Job Dekker, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Joseph J. Byrne Chair in Biomedical Research, and professor of systems biology, the Basic Science IT Subcommittee, which advises the institutional IT Committee on IT matters pertaining to the basic science research mission at UMass Chan.