I am the Research Computing Director at the UC Merced, where I work with 600+ researchers across disciplines. I am responsible for Cyberinfrastructure strategic planning and managing computational lifecycle at UC Merced - from HPC consultation, hardware and software design, HPC provision and usage to outreach and training for varied skill levels, expertise. With an electrical engineering background, I stumbled into HPC after my Masters in Electrical Engineering at UTA. I started developing code for the ATCA - adapting and optimizing IETFs voice encoding and decoding algorithms for a mobile carrier system. In my career as a HPC Engineer, I’ve been involved in all parts of the HPC lifecycle - SW development, management, Sys Administration, (kernel level, APIs, build software for different chipsets) to SW testing, training and outreach. I moved to UC Merced, to help build cyberinfrastructure on campus and use my software development skills to enable researchers to cross all the phases of computational research lifecycle. I am now responsible for the MERCED cluster, the campus-wide High Performance Computing cluster, with 100+ nodes, encompassing 3100 cores, GPU accelerators and attached heterogenous and BeeGFS storage.I oversee the operations of WAVE (Wide Area Visualisation Environment), a specially designed instrument that enables walk-in visualization environments, providing users with unique insights and understanding of their computational research that enhances scientific output and science communication. These WAVE systems are used internationally in disciplines from archaeology to visualizing protein folding. I also help manage ScienceDMZ that enables large research data transfers, enabling multi-site collaborations.I am passionate about using HPC to facilitate research - that is, “translating” the needs of the users to the hardware and software of HPC, and vice versa. As an elected member of NSF-XSEDE Campus Champions Leadership Team, I steer the mission and goals of the Campus Champions program, while providing ongoing, in-depth guidance to promote and advance the long-term goals and objectives of the Campus Champions program.As a Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) member, I help create resources for Research Computing and Data (RCD) Professionals to explain career options and help RCD professionals explore professional development and advancement. As a UC Research IT Committee member, I am a conduit for sharing best practices and developing Computational Research partnerships with other UC campuses.