Specialties | - Scientific computing infrastructure design, deployment, management
- Petabyte scale computing, data management, and automation
- Collaboration with scientists and researchers
- Root-cause troubleshooting of complex computing infrastructures
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Summary of Qualifications | - 25 years of professional Linux administration and programming experience
- 20 years of scientific and high performance computing experience
- United States citizen
- Completed background investigation suitable for a T3 position as of April 2023
- Academic degrees in mathematics and biology
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Professional Training | - Mellanox Fundamentals of InfiniBand Fabrics in HPC Environments - August 2018
- Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Boot Camp - March 2009
- RedHat Certified Engineer (RHCE) on RedHat Enterprise Linux 4
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Current Daily Technologies
| - Storage: Spectrum Scale (GPFS), IBM ESS, DDN SFA, NFS, Samba, Ganesha
- Networking: InfiniBand (FDR/EDR/HDR200), Mellanox NVIDIA QM8700 and SB7800 switches, ConnectX-3/4/5/6 IB HCAs, RDMA VERBS, Cisco Nexus 10/25/40Gb Ethernet, MultiPath, LACP
- Linux: RedHat Enterprise 8/9, CentOS 7, Rocky 9
- Scripting: Bash, python, perl, yaml, jinja2, R
- Automation: Ansible, kickstart, cobbler
- Software management: Spack, conda, yum, rpm spec/repo
- Administered Applications: CryoSPARC, SMRT Link, BioNano Access, CLC Genomics Server, OctaneRender
- Scheduler: Slurm, Univa Grid Engine
- GPUs: NVIDIA A100, V100, P100, K80
- Monitoring: Check_MK, Ganglia, Splunk, DDN Insight, GPFS GUI
- Security: Tenable, FireEye, BigFix, Sophos
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Professional Experience | Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH – 2012–Present
HPC Technical Lead, GDIT, 2013 – Present - Provide technical leadership to a team of senior HPC systems engineers.
- Successfully developed a team culture of communication, collaboration, and documentation.
- Designed, deployed, and maintained high performance computing clusters, networking, and storage infrastructure.
- Long-term lifecycle replacement planning of HPC infrastructure.
- Integrated and automated scientific instrument data production into HPC infrastructure for bioinformatic and cryo-electron microscopy workflows.
- End-to-end data production, analysis, and delivery optimization for life science workflows.
- Developed cluster-as-code DevOps methodologies for HPC using Ansible, GitHub, and other tools.
- Deployed, tuned, and maintained production and test Slurm clusters with heterogeneous node types including GPU for image processing and AI/ML workloads.
- Scripting and automation using Bash, python and Ansible.
- Worked with scientific users of all experience levels to improve their own scripting and pipelines for faster delivery of scientific results.
- Participated in a technical working group to develop security baseline configurations, focused on RedHat, CentOS, and Rocky Linux.
- Calculated and planned power, space, and cooling needs for a broad spectrum of IT equipment.
- Participate in IT cybersecurity audits and remediations.
- Large data archiving to AWS cloud services from remote locations.
HPC Linux Systems Engineer, Dell – 2012–2013 - Provided highly collaborative technical and high performance computing expertise and consultation to Bioinformatics and Microscopy groups. Advised these groups on current and emerging technologies and methodologies.
- Designed, implemented and managed a synchronously replicated 115TB data store for gene sequencing and bioinformatics data.
- Implemented and managed a VMware vSphere 5 cluster for testing, research and development activities.
- Designed and provided purchase advice for the next generation HPC computing and storage environment.
- Monitored and administered Linux, VMware and HPC storage infrastructure.
- Administered sensitive systems and databases requiring FIPS High Security protection mechanisms and procedures.
The University of Montana – 2001–2012
Manager and Systems Engineer for Science Compute Services in the College of Forestry serving the Numerical Teradynamic Simulation Group, the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, and the Flathead Lake Biological Station. - Managed Science Compute Services team members and projects.
- Analyzed, planned, coordinated and prioritized computing needs and resources for served programs.
- Designed, deployed, and administered a research datacenter for several data-intensive research groups working in earth science, global climate and ecosystem modeling, and wildland fire research.
- For servers, workstation and other hardware and software, developed required specifications, got vendor quotes, made purchase recommendations and shepherded approved purchases through the University procurement processes.
- Provided software engineering expertise including code standards, debugging, tools, language help, testing, automation and design to application and model developers.
- Responsible for a 200TB+ storage environment along with a 500TB+ tape archive system.
- Deployed multiple network technologies including 10 Gigabit ethernet, Fibre Channel, and DDR InfiniBand for storage and MPI workloads.
- Deployed and administered three generations of Linux HPC clusters.
- Responsible for a reliable high-performance network infrastructure.
- Deployed and administered a highly available virtualization cluster.
- Administered physical and virtual Linux, ESX, UNIX, and Windows servers.
- Administered EMC Networker backup system.
- Migrated datacenter from AIX to Linux.
- Participated directly in research activities as the networking, programming, or IT expert.
Firefighter Type 2 and Computer Technical Specialist - Trained in ICS, the Incident Command System, wildland firefighting techniques and safety.
- Certified helicopter crewmember for both the Forest Service and National Park Service.
- Assigned to multiple large wildland fire response teams.
- Deployed network and enterprise IT services in challenging remote locations in the Northern Rockies.
- Designed and built remote monitoring camera and weather systems and deployed them in harsh environments on mountain tops in Alaska, Montana, and Washington.
Systems for Environmental Management – 2004
Research Collaborator and Advisor on Cluster-Based Computing serving NASA Ames Research Center’s Ecological Forecasting Lab - Provided advice on network design, cluster maintenance, and data management.
- Collaborated on implementation of storage and cluster compute systems.
- Executed regular detailed security and systems audits and reviews including log analysis, intrusion detection, and vulnerability studies.
University of Washington – 2000 – 2002
Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer for TRIO Training - Designed and implemented a web design competition environment for a nation wide user base.
- Provided secure multi-user remote web-programming tools including apache, php, cgi and QuickTime media streaming.
The University of Montana – 2000
Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer for the Information Technology Resource Center - Implemented and administered a variety of Linux based core services such as email, web, and ftp.
- Implemented a variety of Linux based multi-media streaming services.
- Designed, developed, and maintained enterprise level network monitoring software.
- Participated in international community based Open Source projects such as OpenGroupware.
- Implemented collaborative software development environment.
Big Sky Network Technologies – 1997–2000
Systems Administrator and Programmer - Administered a network of Windows NT, Linux, and Solaris servers in a 24 by 7 ISP environment.
- Developed and maintained C and Perl SNMP applications to administer network services and monitor ISP user loads across a geographically distributed network. in western Montana.
- Implemented a wide range of network services and protocols for web hosting and dial-up ISP services.
- Developed and implemented a network security model and policies.
- Developed a technical support web page to aid customers in solving problems with their Internet services.
- Provided direct technical support to customers on all basic Internet services.
The University of Montana – 1997
Peer Tutor for the Students Tutoring Students program - Provided one-on-one tutoring to students in mathematics including the following areas: probability and linear mathematics, pre-calculus, differential calculus, integral calculus.
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Publications & Presentations | Deploying a Remote Data and Communications Network in Denali National Park Riddering J., L. Queen, C. Teske, A. Neuschwander, C. Stonesifer, E. Lynn, D. Warthin, M. Thornton, G. Wilson
BGC5: New Features and Usage Changes in the Next Major Release of Biome-BGC Neuschwander A., B. Bond-Lamberty, poster presentation at the AGU Joint Assembly 2007, Acapulco, Mexico, May 2007.
Distributed Application Framework for Earth Science Data Processing Votva P., R. Nemani, C. Bowker, A. Michaelis, A. Neuschwander, J. Coughlan, proceedings paper at The International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Toronto, CA, June 2002.
An Automated Data Ingestion and Cataloging System Neuschwander A., poster presentation at NASA ESIP Federation 2nd Technical Workshop, Pasadena, CA, January 2003
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Professional Meetings | SC19 – November 17 - 22, 2019, Dever, CO American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly 2007 – May 22 - 25 Acapulco, Mexico American Geophysical Union Fall 2006 – December 11 - 15 San Francisco, CA Biome-BGC / RHESSys Workshop – April 25 - 27 2006 NTSG, Missoula, MT MODIS Vegetation Workshop II – August 17 - 19, 2004 NTSG, Missoula, MT NASA ESIP Federation 2nd Technical Workshop – January 6 - 9, 2003 JPL, Pasadena, CA MODIS Vegetation Workshop – July 16 - 18, 2002 NTSG, Missoula, MT Science Data Processing Workshop – February 26 - 28, 2002 GSFC, Greenbelt, MD
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Academic Education | The University of Montana – Missoula, MT - Bachelor of Arts in Biology, emphasis in Botanical Sciences
- Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, emphasis in Applied Analysis
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Academic Activities | Independent Study – Flathead Lake Biological Station – Summer 1999 - On the Bioenergetics of Mysis Relicta under Dr. Jack Stanford
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Other Activities | - American Sailing Association member
- Licensed Amateur Radio Operator
- Eagle Scout
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