NCSA Staff Newsletter

NCSA is seeking a senior system engineer. As a member of the Storage Enabling Technologies division, the senior system engineer will participate and lead in the research, evaluation, delivery and support of storage-related products (hardware and software) and services to the NCSA user community. In addition, research into future technologies in areas such as SAN disk deployment and parallel file system management. This individual must be able to work with a diverse user community and be comfortable in a leading-edge environment.

Required Education, Training and Experience

• BA/BS degree required in computer science, engineering or a related field required (Master's preferred). Alternative degree fields will be considered/accepted if accompanied by equivalent experience (depending on nature and depth of experience as it relates to current NCSA advanced technologies).
• Project management experience as well as detailed training in specific technology areas such as microprocessor architectures, SANs, RAID technologies, iSCSI, Infiniband, and backup strategies.
• 5 or more years of relevant experience beyond the bachelor's degree.
• Multiple years of Linux administration support as well as large disk installation environment support such as >800TB with storage area networks.
• Familiarity with the operation and behavior of key technologies (RAID, thin-provisioning, FC, IB, virtual machines, storage hierarchies) and also the specific implementation and effect on performance, behavior, and interoperability.
• Scripting languages (bash, ksh, perl, python, php, and common unix utilities such as awk, grep, and sed).
• Linux, Windows, and Macintosh system administration.
• System automation, monitoring, and reporting, including but not limited to syslog, nagios, expect, cron, snmp and web application frameworks.
• Software design and development principles (Agile, RAD, UML, ER modeling, MVC, Fagan process).

This is a regular academic professional position at NCSA and is a 12/12, 100%-time appointment (renewed annually) with regular University benefits. Salary is commensurate with experience and start date will be as soon as possible after the close date of the search.

To apply, please create your candidate profile at jobs.illinois.edu and upload your CV/resume by May 19, 2012. Contact information for three references must be included on the application (letters maybe also be uploaded or sent to the contact below). For full consideration, candidates must complete the Hiretouch application process by the above date.

NCSA is seeking a media communications specialist to effectively communicate science and technology projects and accomplishments of NCSA and the XSEDE project to internal and external audiences. The incumbent will research and write science-focused content for reports, print publications, internal and external newsletters, websites etc. They will also assist with media relations by cultivating relationships with and pitching stories to local and national media outlets and bloggers, specifically in the science and technology sectors and assist with planning and promotion of workshops, conferences and other events sponsored by NCSA and XSEDE.

Required Education and Experience

• BA/BS degree required in journalism, communications, public relations or a related field. Alternative degree fields will be considered/accepted if accompanied by equivalent experience (depending on the nature and depth of experience as it relates to NCSA's current technologies).
• At least two years' experience in writing, editing, media relations, and/or publications management
• Ability to handle multiple projects and deadlines
• Ability to understand and clearly communicate complicated technical and scientific information

Preferred Experience

• Understanding of web and emerging technologies as tools in communicating messages, including video and social media
• Experience as a writer or editor in the print, web, or broadcast media
• Experience in media relations, either with a PR firm or a large institution
• Experience with a university or other large non-profit agency

This is a regular academic professional position at NCSA and is an annually renewable, 12/12, 100%-time appointment with regular University benefits. Salary is commensurate with experience and start date will be as soon as possible after the close date of the search.

To apply, please create your candidate profile at jobs.illinois.edu and upload your CV/resume by May 31, 2012. Contact information for three references must be included on the application (letters maybe also be uploaded or sent to the contact below). For full consideration, candidates must complete the Hiretouch application process by the above date.

The deadline to submit papers for the 2012 Symposium on Application Accelerators in High-Performance Computing, to be held July 10-12 at Argonne National Laboratory, has been extended by one week to May 18. Submission details are available at http://saahpc.ncsa.illinois.edu/submit/.

The Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation is seeking a visualizations to be used in organization's 2013 brochure and on its website. Visualizations will be selected based on these criteria:

• Illustrative of research at the center submitting the proposed images
• Focus on research that offers a broad representation of what CASC members have undertaken
• Timeliness of visualization (e.g. the Gulf Oil Spill viz last year)
• Exhibits intellectual merit
• Provides scientific, cultural, economic impact
• Compelling, visually interesting, lively, colorful images in a high-resolution format

The following information must be provided with all submitted images:

• Contact's email address and phone number 
• Caption (up to a paragraph) explaining what the image depicts
• Researcher's full contact information
• Which CASC member institution supported the visualization work

If you have a scientific visualization that you would like to submit for consideration, go to http://apps.ccr.buffalo.edu/casc/.

Petascale refers to computing and data in the quadrillions, like the more than 11 quadrillion calculations Blue Waters will be able to perform and the more than 380 quadrillion bytes that will be available in NCSA's new tape archive. In scientific notation, 1 quadrillion is 10 to the 15th. So on 10.15 (October 15) NCSA will celebrate PETASCALE DAY! We plan to have a variety of informative and fun activities for NCSA staff and the local community. We're also encouraging our science and engineering partners, other campus units, and other computing centers to create their own celebrations and to join us in promoting petascale discovery and innovation through social media. Stay tuned for updates.