Biographies
Name |
Biographical Information |
|---|---|
| John Arends is a network analyst with the College of ACES in its Information Technology and Communications unit. John is looking for ways to use virtualization to consolidate the ever increasing number of Windows and Linux servers in his group. Prior moving to the southern end of campus, John worked at the Beckman Institute, providing help desk support. | |
| Corey Betka has been a Network Service Manager with the Network Engineering and Services group since August of 2006. His main responsibilities are campus DNS, VoIP evaluations, and supporting the CITES portion of Campus Multimedia Users "Matrix" streaming service. Prior to joining CITES, Corey spent eight years as a Network Administrator with University Housing, where he was responsible for the student computer centers, administrative workstations, servers, and network infrastructure. | |
Bob has been with CSO/CCSO/CITES for over 20 years and is currently serving as the technical lead for storage and backup infrastructure with the CITES Systems Management Group. Bob's duties include the daily operation of the CITES Enterprise Backup System (based on IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager), which provides backups for 450 clients and over 150TB of storage, along with investigation/deployment of SAN storage technologies. |
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Alex Breen joined CCSO/CITES in 1996 after a six-year stint as network administrator in Agricultural Engineering (now called Agricultural and Biological Engineering). Alex has worked in Departmental Services (DS), since his arrival in CCSO/CITES and is currently the manager of DS Technical Operations, the group that administers is the CITES Exchange service among others. Alex is an original member of CCSP and still finds it valuable to compare and discuss what's going on in different units and departments on campus. |
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| Jack Brighton is Director of Internet Development at WILL, where he manages web site technology and content. He is a guest lecturer in online journalism at the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois, and presents workshops on Internet media, media preservation, and web development at academic and media industry conferences. He serves on the News, Documentary, and Television Interest Group of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Since 2002 he has chaired the University of Illinois Webmasters Coordinating Group, and in 2003 he co-founded the Educational Media Group to foster collaboration on best practices in Internet media for higher education. | |
| CITES | |
| CITES Systems and Technology Services | |
| Randy Cetin joined CITES in 1986 as research programmer in the "Graphics Group," and has since held numerous positions in the organization. An alumnus of the University of Illinois, Randy is the Director of CITES Systems and Technology Services. The division encompasses a wide range of service responsibilities that include the CITES computer labs, cost-recovery services for Unix workstations, CITES' two data centers and Operations Center, management of numerous production servers and services, and the development of integration tools and infrastructure services. | |
| Erik Coleman has been with CITES since 2000, serving as technical lead for Windows Systems with the Systems Management Group (part of CITES Systems and Technology Services), supporting many core production systems based on Microsoft Windows Server platforms, in particular, the UIUC Active Directory. Erik also spent time as a UNIX system administrator with the former Production Systems Group (PSG). He graduated in 1990 from UIUC with a bachelor of science degree in computer engineering and has many years of experience in system management and support in a wide variety of operating systems. | |
| Mike Corn joined CITES as the Director of Security Services and Information Privacy in December 2003. Mike originally came to Urbana for graduate school and has worked and taught in both the School of Music and the Department of Astronomy. During the mid to late 90s he worked as a developer, database designer, and policy work with University Administration. | |
| Natalie Crook is the Purchasing Officer in charge of software and the Supervisor of the Computer Section in Purchasing. Natalie has been with Purchasing six years and with the University 19. She handles software purchases (license agreements), electronic services (surveys, on-line database subscriptions), and oversees the staff responsible for networking services, PC's, laptops, peripherals, cluster systems, and telecommunication services. | |
| Angie Dimit currently serves as Associate Director of Development for Alumni Relations for the College of Engineering. Her 20-year tenure on campus includes 11 years with the Campus Visitors Center, seven years with the Department of General Engineering, and one year with the Hoeft Technology and Management Program. Angie’s undergraduate degree is in Business Administration and Marketing; her graduate degree is in Human Resources Education—both from UIUC. | |
| Steve Downey is a research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications engaged in the development of collaborative learning and research environments. Steve was one of the early developers and instructors for the HRE Online masters degree program and is currently developing components of NCSA's CyberCollaboratory, which brings together scientists, practitioners, and educators to collaborate and share knowledge. His emerging work focuses on the adaptation of video games for use as multiperson online learning and collaboration environments. | |
| Mike Edwards joined the University in 2000, working for EWS as a student. In 2003, Mike joined CITES/DS as a UNIX Systems administrator and then moved to ATLAS in 2004 to manage servers and infrastructure. He is currently responsible for administration of ATLAS' Linux and VMWare based servers and architecting the infrastructure needed. | |
| Michael Gardner, Associate Director of CITES Communications Technologies, has worked for CITES since 1979. He originally supported Dec Laboratory computers and RJE communications, the Sytek network, and early terminal servers. Starting in the late '80s, Mike became involved in CSO network design (early CSO buildings and NCSA related), then campus network design, and has been supporting, managing, and/or developing UIUCnet ever since. Mike obtained his BSEE from Purdue University and spent two years working for a small research lab in Indianapolis before coming to the University. | |
| Gabe Gibson has been IT Manager for the Department of Physics, since December of 2004. His team administers a wide range of services, including clusters, firewalls, programming services, and managed workstations for both Physics staff and research. Together with Kris Williams at MRL, Gabe worked on the design and construction of a 1500 sq. ft. data center as a large collaborative effort serving the two neighboring departments. Prior to coming to the University, he was the Director of Information Technology at Human Kinetics. In this role, he managed multiple teams that provided technical call center support, quality assurance, and network/system administration. | |
| Anatoliy Gruzd is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UIUC (since 2005), holding MS in LIS from Syracuse University and BS & MS in CS from Dnipropetrovsk National University in Ukraine. At UIUC, Anatoliy works as a research assistant for the Community Informatics Initiative (CII) (http://www.cii.uiuc.edu). With CII, Anatoliy is involved in the research of online communities and responsible for web development and technical support of a web-based collaborative environment called Ilabs (http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu). | |
| Nick is a Network and Systems Services Analyst with the CITES Operations Center. In addition to performing the OpCenter's primary services, Nick is a developer for several OpCenter internal tools, and contributes to collaborative projects within CITES. In his spare time, Nick directs a Gregorian Chant choir and is preparing for his wedding on April 28. | |
| Mona is the Assistant CIO for Strategy and Communications and a member of the Campus IT Strategic Planning Steering Committee. In previous lives, Mona has been a programmer, Help Desk consultant, Unix system administrator, manager of Documentation, director of customer support, and IT strategic planner for a national laboratory, a major IT vendor for UIUC. | |
| Paul Hixson is an Assistant Dean in ACES and Director of that College's Information Technology and Communication Services unit (ITCS). Paul has worked in ACES and U of I Extension since 1970, first as a communications specialist and photographer; later as a multimedia producer and team leader. His undergraduate degree was in LAS (English literature), and his MFA was in Photography -- both from UIUC. | |
| Mark Johnson joined the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations as a Network Analyst in November 2003, after a year and a half as a member of the CITES OpCenter staff. Since joining ILIR, Mark has overseen a network upgrade, implemented a systems modernization, and expanded ILIR's server capacity significantly, including a move to server virtualization. Mark has worked closely with CITES on various inquiries regarding centralized storage and netadmin communication, as well as serving on an OpCenter search committee. Earlier this year Mark's position at ILIR was upgraded to Manager of System Services. | |
| Charley Kline is the third person to hold the title of UIUCnet architect and has held the position since 1992. He manages the Network Engineering group within the CITES Division of Network Engineering and Services. He began work as a student computer operator on the IBM 360/75 and Cyber mainframes and went on to connect UIUC to the BITNET computer network as a graduate student. After graduating, he ported the 4.2bsd TCP/IP networking code to the Cray Timesharing System, while working for NCSA. Currently, the Network Engineering group is working on projects such as the next UIUCnet core, which will improve performance for research networking as well as provide better security for all users; new VPN and network authentication systems; readying UIUCnet for eventual support of telephony as well as data traffic; and supervising the deployment of the high-speed intercampus dark-fiber network, the ICCN. | |
Roger Lewis is a member of the Network Maintenance group in CITES Network Design and Maintenance. Roger began at CSO in 1977 (which eventually became CITES), working with various types of data communications equipment across campus. He has been involved with the construction and support of the campus network from its beginning in the mid '80s. Sometimes known as the “node troll,” Roger installed much of the original backbone network equipment in the nodes and has endured numerous equipment upgrades over the years. |
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| Larry Liddle started as assistant manager of CITES Communications Customer Service in 1995 and has been manager since April 2000. The Communications Customer Service department manages all telecommunications, voice mail, pager, and cellular service adds/move and changes under the State cellular contract for faculty/staff business use. | |
Panit Lisy is the Acting Director of the Network Engineering and Services Division at CITES. Panit originally joined CITES as the Manager of the Emerging network Technologies and Services group in August 2005. Panit's division, Network Engineering and Services, is composed of both the Network Engineering group and the Emerging Network Technologies and Services group. This division engineers and implements wide-area and campus-area networking and communications systems and designs the campus backbone data network (UIUCnet), which provides Internet connectivity to the campus and remote network access to students, faculty, and staff. Also responsible for providing DNS services, this group develops and implements network monitoring and management tools and researches/develops emerging network data, video, and voice technologies. |
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| Jon Marks, a member of CITES' Network Engineering and Services division since January 2006, is responsible for infrastructure and software development. Beginning in 1993 as a UIUC engineering (and then psychology) undergrad, Jon has served the University in diverse roles, including O&M janitor, laboratory subject, laboratory assistant, graduate research assistant, teaching assistant, systems administrator, software developer, and database administrator. | |
| Drew MacGregor has been with the Department of Computer Science since 1998, in both the roles of Hypermedia Communicator and currently, Coordinator of Educational and Multimedia Technologies. He has been in the field of streaming media since 1997. Drew designed the AV capture and delivery infrastructure in the Siebel Center and is a part of the informal campus multimedia steering group. Drew has extensively researched lecture capture systems for classroom recording and currently coordinates media capture and delivery, video conferencing, and the videowall for the CS Department. | |
| Jan Novakofski is a Professor of Animal Science and chair of ITAB. Jan grew up in far northern Wisconsin where he developed a strategic plan to move south. His scientific interest was piqued while working at Disney World as a college student when he noticed that Minnie mouse stayed pretty thin, but Mickey could never manage to loose those extra pounds. His strategic plan forgotten, he moved north again and has spent the past 25 years looking for the answer and teaching students about growth, obesity, and nutrition. | |
| Brynnen Owen earned his PhD from the University of Illinois in Physics were he spent more time with computers than with physics. Today, he works as co-head of the GSLIS Systems group, where he has worked to implement a new shared SAN system, a CUPS print server with a custom quota, and a LDAP/SaMBa domain. He has also co-implemented the combining of three separate systems into a single infrastructure. | |
| Deanna is an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology. Deanna is in charge of instructional and research technology support for the College of LAS and oversees ATLAS. Before taking her current position, Deanna did research on pathogenic strains of bacteria, including one that is used to genetically engineer plants. Deanna got bitten by the IT bug, first through her use of digital media and asynchronous learning tools in teaching biology to UIUC pre-meds. | |
| Chris Skaar, Iris Service Manager, is a member of the CITES Network Maintenance group in CITES Communications Technologies. He has worked for CITES since 2001. Previous to his current placement, he has held positions in the Operations Center and Network Design Office. He previously worked as a systems engineer for a small consulting firm in Sioux Falls, SD that, through several buyouts, eventually became part of McLeodUSA. | |
Officer Todd Short received an Associates in Arts from Parkland College in 1993, a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications from the University of Illinois in 1995 and an Associates in Applied Science from Parkland College in 1999. Officer Short has been a police officer with the University of Illinois Police Department since 2001, previously working for the City of Decatur and Village of Rantoul Police Departments. Officer Short has worked in both patrol and investigations before most recently being assigned to the Office of Campus Emergency Planning for the University of Illinois. Officer Short serves on the Crisis Intervention Team, Field Training Unit, Respirator Training Team and the Recruiting Division for the University of Illinois Police Department. Officer Short currently serves on the faculty/staff of Louisiana State University (National Center for Biomedical Research & Training) instructing numerous courses relating to terrorism. These courses range in content from training first responders to recognize chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive and incendiary devices to actually operating within a contaminated environment after a terrorist event has occurred. Officer Short has been responsible for instructing these courses to multiple emergency responder disciplines throughout the United States. Officer Short is one of sixteen instructors nationally who is certified through the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) and the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP) to conduct Simulation Based Training for Command Post Personnel. Officer Short is also certified through the State of Illinois and the Illinois Fire Service Institute to instruct the Illinois Terrorism Task Force Unified Command course. Officer Short was recently responsible for working with a national consortium to develop an instructional video and informational packets to assist law enforcement agencies prevent and deter terrorist threats. Both the training video and information packets were administered by the Office for State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and were distributed to every police agency in the United States. Officer Short is a certified Police Officer for the state of Illinois and is recognized as one of the country’s premiere instructors in counter-terrorism and Incident Command related topics. |
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| Mike Smeltzer has been Director of Network Communications for CITES, since March of 2005. In that role, he has focused on coordinating campus input and collaboration on the Campus Network Upgrade project and also works with campus units on projects that are "outside the box." In February of 2007, Mike assumed responsibility for the CITES Network Design and Network Maintenance groups. He came to CITES from McLeodUSA, where he was the local Operations Manager. In that capacity, he worked with the campus on a variety of voice and data projects. In addition to working in the communications industry, Mike has been a faculty member in both the UIUC College of Communications and University High School, and was publisher and general manager of the Illini Media Company. | |
| Ken Spelke is Associate Dean for Information Technology and Research in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), and Coordinator for Campus-wide Information Technology Strategic Planning in the Office of the CIO. Until last month, Ken served as UIUC Interim Assistant CIO for Educational Technologies. Before coming to GSLIS in 2005, Ken was Assistant Dean and Director of Information Technology and Communication Services in the College of ACES, where he provided IT leadership for Agriculture and Extension. | |
Mary Stevens has worked for CITES for the past 10 years. Currently, she works in Network Engineering where she is the Service Manager for the campus firewalls and the campus VPN. She is the Technical Manager of the campus IPS devices, and she is also the backup Service Manager for UIUCnet Wireless. |
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| Neil Thackeray is a Computer Systems Specialist and co-head of the Systems group at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS). While at GSLIS, Neil has been co-creator of the GSLIS infrastructure, which includes a new shared SAN system, a CUPS print server with a custom quota, and a LDAP/SaMBa domain. He has also co-implemented the combining of three separate systems into a single infrastructure. He manages the GSLIS computer labs, including a student lab and a classroom lab. | |
| Ryan Thomas began serving the College of Education in 1995 as a CITES Departmental Services consultant for database development and network administration. Now, as Associate Director of IT of the Office of Educational Technology, Ryan leads a team of IT professionals who provide a wide range of IT services to the college. Involved in various IT-related campus-wide committees over the years, both Ryan and members of his team contribute to efforts to improve campus IT services and their articulation with colleges and departments. | |
| Kirby is a Senior Research Programmer with the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics group at the Beckman Institute. The BioCoRE biological collaborative research environment was initiated in 1999, when Kirby joined the project, and he now oversees a small team of programmers working on all aspects of the collaboratory's development and deployment to the scientific community. In a former life, Kirby obtained degrees in Nuclear Engineering/Computer Science and taught CS courses at the University of Missouri-Rolla. | |
| CITES | |
| Chuck Wallbaum has been the Director of Computer and Electronic Services for the School of Chemical Sciences since 2003. Before moving to CU in 1980 to pursue an EE degree, Chuck toured internationally with a Chicago Blues band. He has worked as a network technician, Project Leader, Help Desk Manager, IT Consultant, and Network Services Manager. He now leads a diverse team which designs, builds, and services electronic instrumentation and provides computational, network, and programming services to UI researchers. Chuck designed and oversaw construction of a 2000 sq. ft. data center in the 91-year-old addition to Noyes Lab. | |
| Alfred Weiss is a Computer Assisted Instruction Specialist at CITES Educational Technologies, where he aids in curriculum development and provides support for faculty and instructors who are engaged in teaching with technology. Al has a Master of Arts degree in Japanese History and is currently working on a PhD in technology education. | |
| Rich Williams is Director of CITES Departmental Services. For over 30 years, he has been involved in information technology and services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His experience runs the gamut from data analysis in the age of mainframes to management of one of the top, self-supporting academic IT units focused on distributed services to colleges and departments. | |
| Melissa Woo joined CITES in 2000 as a UNIX system administrator in the former CITES Workstation Services Group. Since then, she has held positions of progressively greater responsibility within CITES and is currently Assistant Director, CITES Systems and Technology Services Division. Melissa oversees the groups responsible for production Windows and UNIX system administration, IT operations center, and data centers, as well as the new group that will support campus IT Professionals. She also assists the Director with overall management of the Division. | |
| Stan Yagi, Assistant CIO for Information Technologies, joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in August 2001. He heads four divisions within CITES: Communications Technologies, Customer Support and Information Services, Departmental Services, and Systems and Technology Services. Prior to occupying his current position, Stan served as the Director of Information Technology Services at Queen's University, Kingston Ontario, Canada. |
