Strategic Administration of Research Computing (STARC)

The Strategic Administration of Research Computing (STARC) Oversight Committee works to centralize the coordination of research computing facilities and services, including but not limited to: the high performance computing core facility (HPC@UCD), data centers, network infrastructure, web services, software, research data & IT security, and data storage. The committee includes diverse membership from key constituencies with direct report lines to decision makers.  STARC will be part of the overall IT governance framework for UC Davis currently under development.

2026-2027 Members

Jawdat Al-Bassam, HPC Facility Advisory Committee, Academic Senate Representative

Simon Atkinson (Co-Chair), Vice Chancellor for Research

Vessela Ensberg, Interim Director of Online Strategy, UC Davis Library

Rachael Callcut, Chief Research Information Officer, UC Davis Health

Neeraj Chauhan, Chief Technology Officer, Informational and Educational Technology

Chen-Nee Chuah (Co-Chair), Professor, College of Engineering

Cristina Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research

Isabelle Girard, Director, Research Core Facilities Program

Aisha Jackson, Chief Information and Digital Strategy Executive

Jeremy Phillips, Executive Director of Information Technology, College of Letters and Sciences

Steve Pigg, Executive Director of Information Technology, College of Engineering

Jeff Ross-Ibarra, Scientific Director, High Performance Computing Core Facility

START Recommendations

The STARC Oversight Committee was established as part of the Sustaining Teaching and Research Taskforce (START) recommendations on Research Computing Oversight.  The full recommendation can be read here.

Meeting Summaries

The STARC Oversight Committee meets monthly.  Summaries of those meetings are posted here afterwards.

Working Groups

Data Center and Server Room Policy Working Group – Demand for computing capacity is growing rapidly, outpacing the infrastructure necessary to provide adequate and efficient power, cooling, fire protection, seismic bracing, physical security, and monitoring.  The workgroup is charged to develop and recommend a proposed policy on the use of university space for compute, together with the standards and processes needed to implement it.

Contact

For questions or more information about STARC, please contact Isabelle Girard.