Executive Director of Research IT

Discover Vanderbilt University Medical Center:  Located in Nashville, Tennessee, and operating at a global crossroads of teaching, discovery, and patient care, VUMC is a community of diverse individuals who come to work each day with the simple aim of changing the world. It is a place where your expertise will be valued, your knowledge expanded, and your abilities challenged. Vanderbilt Health recognizes that diversity is essential for excellence and innovation. We are committed to an inclusive environment where everyone has the chance to thrive and where your diversity of culture, thinking, learning, and leading is sought and celebrated. It is a place where employees know they are part of something that is bigger than themselves, take exceptional pride in their work and never settle for what was good enough yesterday. Vanderbilt’s mission is to advance health and wellness through preeminent programs in patient care, education, and research.

Organization:

VUMC IT Leaders

Job Summary:

The Executive Director of Research IT will provide leadership, partnership and vision of information technology for the VUMC Research Organization. The Executive Director must think strategically about technology needed to support the Research Organizations mission and is responsible for the planning, coordination and implementation of information technology, under the direction of the VUMC Central IT, to support the complex research community and strategic initiatives. The Executive Director works closely with the VUMC Central IT Leadership team to ensure alignment with the Research Institute objectives.

The Executive Director has responsibility for managing a unit under the VUMC Central IT Division that provides specialized research IT support, advocacy with senior leadership for Research IT issues, active brokering and coordination across providers of technology support across the VUMC umbrella, providing capabilities and expertise for advanced scientific computing for research, bioinformatics, high performance computing, and translational research. This includes providing leadership for operations, project management, the establishment of standards of excellence, development and management of all services, infrastructure, applications, budget management, supervision of personnel and coordination with other disciplines and departments to achieve the mission and goals of the Research Organization.

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KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1.    Implements, develops, and maintains services, infrastructure principles, applications and processes to align with the Research Institute’s operational and strategic goals.

• Provides support services necessary for the diverse investigative needs of research, including applications, servers, storage area networks, data transfer mechanisms, and collaboration tools.

• Leads and coordinates implementation of new services, infrastructure, applications and enhancements to current services to improve administrative, compliance, and scientific operations of research providing methodologies and techniques that start with the business requirements and security features.

• Translates user needs into technical requirements and educates end users about the importance and relevance of data security, backup, retention and other IT best practices.  Identifies needs and opportunities for the efficient and cost effective use of existing and new services. 

• Participates in the design and security validations in coordination with the Vanderbilt IT Security Department.

• Coordinates with Research Leadership and staff to operationalize infrastructure services, applications and high quality support for these based on agreed service levels.

• Develops standards and procedures to monitor and continuously improve the management of services.

• Keeps pace with latest software/hardware innovations.

• Facilitates vendor evaluations and solution recommendations and supports RFP creation, management and execution process.

• Ensures internal quality measurement programs exist and are followed.

• Manages budgets and executes annual planning in conjunction with appropriate stakeholders.

• Develops and collaborates on policies, procedures, and related documentation to formalize standards, service capability, and service level expectations. 

2.     Develops coordinated long-term strategies and maintains technology roadmaps for technologies and applications in coordination with Research and VUMC Central IT Teams.