Sr. Director, Research Computing - Enterprise, Operations & Strategy

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) is a nationally recognized, top-tier public research university that unites the power of higher education, biomedical discovery and healthcare within one visionary institution. As the third-largest research university in Texas and a Carnegie R1-designated institution, UT San Antonio is a model of access and excellence — advancing knowledge, social mobility and public health across South Texas and beyond. UT San Antonio serves approximately 42,000 students in 320 academic programs spanning science, engineering, medicine, health, liberal arts, AI, cybersecurity, business, education and more. With 17,000 faculty and staff, UT San Antonio has also been recognized as a Top Employer in Texas by Forbes Magazine. Learn more online, on UT San Antonio Today or on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn.

Salary Range: Commensurate with education, experience, and qualifications.

Job Type: Full Time

Posting Close Date: Applications will be accepted through 11:59 PM CDT on 10/1/2026 . At the discretion of the hiring department, this posting may close once a sufficient number of qualified applications have been received.

Required Application Materials:

• Resume is required
• Cover letter is required.
• Contact information for three professional references.

Job Summary

The Senior Director for Research Computing serves as the institution's senior leader within Enterprise Technology Services and the senior subject matter expert for artificial intelligence, responsible for building and leading the integrated research computing function that powers the UT San Antonio comprehensive research enterprise.  As an information technology leader, the role serves and partners with Senior Leadership, Deans, principal investigators, and faculty as its primary customers, and works alongside fellow Enterprise Technology Services leaders to translate scientific ambition into reliable, well-governed, well-supported computing services.

The Senior Director will design and operate a unified research computing service catalog that meets the needs of biomedical investigators, clinical and translational scientists, AI and data science researchers, cybersecurity scholars, engineers, and faculty across the social sciences and humanities.  The leader will set strategy for high-performance computing, GPU and AI infrastructure, secure enclaves for regulated and controlled data, research data storage and management, scientific software, research applications, and the researcher-facing support and workforce that supports researchers at every stage of their work.  Working with the Chief Information Officer, the Chief Information Security Officer, clinical informatics leaders, faculty, and academic leadership, the Senior Director helps set enterprise AI strategy, governance, and standards that reach across the research, clinical, educational, and administrative missions, and positions the integrated institution to adopt AI responsibly and at scale.

Core Responsibilities

1. Develops and implements a multi-year research computing strategy aligned with institutional research priorities, partnering with research leadership, deans, and faculty to support sponsored research growth, faculty success, and emerging scientific and technology needs.
2. Serves as the institution's principal voice on research computing, representing the integrated university to peer institutions, federal sponsors, the UT System, the Texas Advanced Computing Center, national laboratories, and technology partners.  
3. Serves as the institution's principal advisor on artificial intelligence, leading enterprise AI strategy, governance, and adoption across research, clinical, educational, and administrative functions while advising leadership on opportunities, risks, and evolving regulatory requirements.
4. Establishes and leads the institution's AI governance framework, defining policies, standards, and oversight processes to ensure responsible, secure, and compliant AI adoption across the enterprise.
5. Designs and manages a comprehensive research computing service portfolio, including HPC, AI/GPU, cloud, secure computing, data services, software support, training, and grant support, with clear service, allocation, and funding models.
6. Establishes faculty engagement and research support programs that expand access to advanced computing services, support investigator success, and measure adoption, satisfaction, and research impact.
7. Partners with principal investigators on grant proposals, contributing facilities and resources language, letters of support, cost share modeling, and infrastructure components for major funding opportunities including NIH S10, NSF CC*, NSF MRI, and DOD research instrumentation grants.
8. Leads the architecture, procurement, deployment, and lifecycle management of institutional HPC and AI infrastructure, including CPU clusters, GPU systems for training and inference, high throughput and high bandwidth storage, scientific software environments, schedulers, and identity and allocation systems.
9. Optimizes the mix of on premises infrastructure, commercial cloud, and external HPC access through the Texas Advanced Computing Center, ACCESS, and DOE leadership facilities to deliver the best price, performance, and time to science for each class of workload.  
10. Advances the institution's AI research infrastructure, including GPU, model development, and MLOps capabilities, while partnering with faculty and research leaders to strengthen competitiveness for AI-focused research funding.
11. Establishes standards, governance, and lifecycle management practices for responsible AI development and deployment, enabling secure, compliant, and scalable use of AI technologies across research and enterprise environments.
12. Builds and manages secure research computing environments for regulated and sensitive data, ensuring compliance with applicable requirements and providing researchers with secure, audit-ready solutions throughout the data lifecycle.
13. Establishes research data management services, including storage, archival, data sharing, metadata, and FAIR data practices, while supporting compliance with federal data management and sharing requirements.
14. Develops and maintains research data governance policies for data classification, stewardship, retention, sharing, and provenance in partnership with research and compliance stakeholders.
15. Establishes governance standards for AI training and evaluation data, including provenance, consent, quality, de-identification, and appropriate use.
16. Partners with information security leadership to strengthen the security and compliance of research computing services, ensuring readiness for audits, certifications, and sponsor requirements.
17. Builds the institutional capability to support classified or sensitive cleared research as the research portfolio grows in defense, intelligence, and homeland security domains.  Ensures that research computing services are designed with security and compliance as embedded properties rather than after the fact additions.
18. Leads the management of AI specific risk in partnership with the Chief Information Security Officer, privacy officers, and compliance leaders.  
19. Translates sponsor requirements into clear guidance, services, and controls that researchers can adopt without becoming compliance experts themselves. 
20. Develops a coherent hybrid infrastructure strategy that integrates on premises systems, commercial cloud services through enterprise agreements with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud, and external HPC capacity through TACC, ACCESS, and partner institutions.  
21. Establishes institutional cloud landing zones for research that provide preconfigured network segmentation, identity integration, cost controls, security baselines, and data egress governance.  
22. Leads capital planning for research computing facilities, including data center capacity, power, cooling, networking, and physical security, and coordinate with facilities, real estate, and infrastructure partners to align research computing growth with institutional master planning.
23. Makes research computing accessible to investigators and trainees at every career stage and from every discipline.  
24. Recruits, develops, and retains a research computing workforce and partners with academic departments to create joint appointments and internship pipelines.
25. Advances AI literacy and enablement across the institution. 
26. Cultivates a service environment grounded in responsiveness, scientific curiosity, and genuine partnership with faculty.  
27. Owns the resilience strategy for research computing services, ensuring readiness to withstand, respond to, and recover from disruptions and major events. 
28. Leads resilience testing for research computing, including recovery exercises and failure simulations that validate readiness and response effectiveness.  Drives continuous improvement in recovery time and recovery point objectives for critical research data and infrastructure, and gives research and IT leadership a clear view of resilience posture and remediation progress.
29. Coordinates response and recovery during major incidents affecting research computing, including executive communication, prioritization, and restoration of service.  
30. Identifies and manages risks arising from research computing operations and strategic initiatives.  
31. Oversees resilience and risk requirements for critical third parties and vendors that support research computing, including cloud providers, external high performance computing partners, and scientific software suppliers, so that key dependencies do not become single points of failure.
32. Advances execution discipline and program governance for research computing investments and capital programs, and drives organizational preparedness through training, awareness, and readiness exercises for research computing staff and the investigators they support.
33. Operates the research computing function with disciplined financial management, sustainable funding models, and transparent business practices.  
34. Establishes service level commitments, performance metrics, and regular reporting to research and IT leadership.  Uses metrics to inform investment decisions, retire underused services, and prioritize the work that produces the greatest scientific return.
35. Maintains a forward looking technology roadmap that anticipates the next three to five years of scientific computing, AI, and data infrastructure needs, and presents that roadmap regularly to executive leadership and research stakeholders.
36. Performs other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field.
• Ten (10) years of progressive experience in research computing, scientific computing, research informatics, or a closely related field, including a minimum of five years leading multidisciplinary technical teams that support faculty researchers.
• Demonstrated experience leading research computing environments, including HPC, GPU, AI, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure. 
• Proven ability to support secure research operations involving regulated or controlled data, develop sustainable service delivery and funding models, and partner with researchers on sponsored grant proposals. 
• Experience with operational resilience, disaster recovery, and critical infrastructure management.
• Knowledge of AI strategy, governance, risk management, and responsible AI practices in research, academic, or healthcare environments.
• This position may require the ability to maintain the security and integrity of UT San Antonio and its infrastructure per Texas EO-GA-48.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Vision
• Leadership
• Strategic Planning
• Influence
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Credibility
• Stewardship
• Financial-Acumen
• Innovation
• Artificial-Intelligence
• Governance 
• Risk-Management 
• Change-Leadership
• Research-Enablement 

Working Conditions

• Office Environment. Ability to travel to and from meetings, training sessions or other business-related events. After hours and weekend work is required on an occasional basis. Occasional after hours and weekend work or overtime may be required.

Physical Demands

• Sedentary work; sitting most of the time. Jobs are sedentary, if walking and standing are required, only occasionally. Exerts up to 10 lbs. of force occasional.

This position will work primarily on campus. Travel and parking expenses are the employee's responsibility.

This position is contingent upon a successful background check. Verification of a valid driver's license and Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) may be completed as applicable. Applicants selected must be able to show proof of eligibility to work in the United States by time of hire.

Equal Employment Opportunity

As an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer, it is the policy of The University of Texas at San Antonio to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity for all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or genetic information, and veteran status. The University is committed to the Affirmative Action Program in compliance with all government requirements to ensure nondiscrimination.