Job Description
Department:
Chemistry - King - Staff
Pay Rate Type:
Salary
Employee Type:
Job Summary:
All applicants should use the following link to submit candidate materials: https://apply.interfolio.com/180668
The Director of Computing Innovation is a key technical leadership role within Colby College’s newly established McVey Center for Computational and Data Sciences. The McVey Center serves as an integrated academic initiative focused on advancing computational thinking, data science, and high-level research across the liberal arts, leveraging the College’s investments in High Performance Computing (HPC) within Academic Technology Services (ATS) and the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DAI).
The Director of Computing Innovation plays a central role in advancing the Center’s mission by enabling advanced computational research and instructional solutions that support faculty and students across disciplines. Working collaboratively across the College, this position ensures that computational resources, tools, and services are welcoming, accessible, and scalable, supporting inclusive excellence in teaching, learning, and research.
The Director of Computing Innovation reports to the Faculty Director of the McVey Center and works closely with the Center’s Technical Director (consultant) and the ATS HPC team.
Essential Functions and Key Responsibilities
The successful candidate must be able to perform essential duties satisfactorily as well as possess education/experience and employ the knowledge, skills, and abilities as listed in representative fashion. Colby College actively supports the Americans with Disabilities Act and will consider reasonable accommodations to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position. This listing of essential duties is not all-inclusive, but representative; other duties may be assigned.
Technical Computing Enablement and Infrastructure Integration
Facilitate advanced computational solutions that support the research and pedagogical needs of faculty and students.
Collaborate with ATS HPC and Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence teams to integrate campus computing resources efficiently and strategically.
Partner with Colby’s HPC services to develop flexible, secure, reproducible, and scalable computing environments for teaching and research.
Analyze and optimize software applications and HPC systems, identifying and addressing performance bottlenecks and technical challenges.
Provide technical support and troubleshooting assistance for software and computational issues encountered by faculty and students.
Curricular and Instructional Innovation
Enable and support McVey Center activities that advance faculty research and teaching initiatives.
Design and deliver training sessions, workshops, and bootcamps utilizing advanced computational tools and environments, including Unix-based systems and programming languages such as Python and R.
Support curricular integration efforts to embed computational thinking and data-driven approaches into courses across academic disciplines.
Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation, including user guides, technical specifications, and online resources, to support users in completing advanced computational tasks.
Research Support and Student Engagement
Provide computational research support for new and existing faculty, including consultation on software tools, workflows, and data management strategies.
Actively promote inclusive computational excellence, ensuring programs, services, and resources are accessible and supportive for all students.
Support student engagement initiatives such as research grants, internships, the McVey Fellows Program, and summer research experiences.
Contribute technical expertise to collaborative research projects requiring advanced computational resources.
Center Operations and Strategic Collaboration
Work closely with the Faculty Director and Technical Director to advance the strategic goals, programming, and impact of the McVey Center.
Coordinate with academic departments and administrative partners, including Career Services, Advancement, and Alumni Relations, to integrate the Center’s mission into broader institutional initiatives.
Participate in the ongoing assessment and continuous improvement of computational services and support processes in collaboration with ATS HPC.
Position Qualifications
Education and/or experience:
Ph.D. in a science or social science discipline, with demonstrated experience using computation as a critical research tool.
Sufficient knowledge of hardware and software systems to facilitate advanced computational solutions supporting faculty and students.
Proficiency in programming and scripting languages commonly used in research computing (e.g., Python, C, C++, bash, R, MATLAB, Perl).
Experience working in a collaborative academic or research computing environment is essential. Experience in an instructional capacity (instructor of record) is desirable.
Exceptional interpersonal, communication, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with non-technical research faculty and collaborate across disciplines.
Commitment to supporting and welcoming all students.
Physical/Mental Demands
The physical demands and work environment characteristics described herein are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform essential functions of this position and/or may be encountered while performing essential functions. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
To successfully perform the essential functions of this position, an employee must be able to maintain appropriate confidentiality with regard to employee data, documents, issues, etc., and respect privacy needs of employees and past employees with regard to the same.
The ability to comply with highly inflexible deadlines is required to successfully perform the essential functions of this position; there will be multiple occurrences of sudden, urgent task completion required.
There may be occurrences of employees, past employees, members of the general public, and others who express opinions, may exhibit strong emotions, which will require the employee to interact professionally, diplomatically, and appropriately in such situations.
While performing the essential duties of this position, an employee would frequently be required to move around the office space as well as within hallways, meeting rooms, and other parts of the campus facilities.
There may be multiple/daily instances of prolonged personal computer use which would include keyboard and/or mouse usage as well as viewing a computer monitor.
An employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 35 pounds to perform essential position functions.
Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus.
The overall work environment requires the mental ability to shift focus quickly due to interruptions; an employee must be able to mentally track multiple projects and tasks as well.
The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate; however, there may be unexpected instances of somewhat loud sounds.
Position may require occasional evening or weekend hours to support events or installations.
