About the Computing Facilities Staff

The mission of the Department of Computer Science Computing Facilities staff, aka "CS Staff," is three-fold. First, we specify, deploy, and maintain the common computing infrastructure for the Department. Second, we deploy applications that support the academic and research mission of the Department. Third, we provide technical support for both CS systems and applications as well as front-line technical support for University/OIT systems and applications.

More specifically, we specify, deploy, and maintain the department's:

  • Networking Infrastructure
    • router, switches, wiring
  • Centralized Computing
    • cycle servers, computational cluster
  • Centralized Storage
    • file systems, backups
  • Application Servers
    • email, web, database
  • Instructional Facilities
    • courselab, graduate student PCs, Course Management Software (TigerFile)
  • Research Facilities
    • Room 002 Co-location facility, the CS area of the HPCRC
  • Applications
    • TigerFile / Runscript
    • Independent Work Portal
    • PAC Portal
    • SSH Key Manager

In addition, we perform administrative duties (e.g., asset tracking of computers), manage the integrity of our systems (e.g., security), allocate resources, investigate upcoming technologies, and act as an advisory resource to the Department and the University at large.

Organizationally, CS Staff consists of two sections:

  • Computing Facilities
    Scott Karlin, Senior Manager
    • Infrastructure Operations
      Christopher Miller, Manager
      • Asya Dvorkin, Senior System Administrator
      • Brian Harkness, System Administrator
    • Application Development and Support
      Joseph Crouthamel, Manager
      • Christopher Sanchez, Senior Web Developer
      • Fisnik Laci, Web Developer
      • Rupesh Varghese, Technical Support
      • Jordan Rice, Technical Support

Members of CS Staff are both specialists and generalists. We each have our own specialties and spend a significant portion of our time working on medium-to-long term projects.

Our skill set includes: Cloud Computing (AWS, Azure), System Administration (Puppet, Linux, Database, IPv6), Web Development (PHP, Symfony, React, Angular, Drupal, Django), Software Development (Python, C, Bash, PHP, Perl), DevOps.

Project ideas come from both inside and outside our group. Internally generated projects are often "behind the scenes" and help us to manage the department's growing infrastructure with a fixed staff size. When reviewing a new request, project, or service, we consider several factors including security/privacy, funding/personnel resources (non-recurring and recurring), and impact on the design of our systems.

Please send requests and questions to us at csstaff@cs.princeton.edu

Contact information for the members of CS Staff are listed on the Research & Technical Staff page.

Tags: