Director
Professor Sean Smith
Sean Smith commenced as Director of the NCI in January 2018 and is conjointly Professor of Computational Nanomaterials Science and Technology at ANU. He has extensive theoretical and computational research experience in chemistry, nanomaterials and nano-bio science and technology.
He returned to Australia in 2014 at UNSW Sydney, founding and directing the Integrated Materials Design Centre to drive an integrated program of materials design, discovery and characterization. Prior to this, he directed the US Department of Energy funded Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of five major DOE nanoscience research and user facilities in the US, through its 2011-2013 triennial phase.
Deputy Director
Allan Williams
Innovative Compute environments
Allan Williams has been the Deputy Director responsible for Innovative Compute Environments (previously named Associate Director for Services and Technology) at the National Computational Infrastructure since 2013. In this current role, he is responsible for the delivery of both high-quality and innovative integrated research infrastructure services supporting Australia’s leading researchers. He achieved this through re-building the systems and operational teams needed to deliver Australia’s largest public supercomputer, the world’s fastest research cloud and the southern hemisphere’s fastest filesystems.
Prior to his start at NCI, he was Director of IT Services for the ANU responsible for University Wide Corporate and Student IT services including networking, cybersecurity and telephony. He has held a number of different roles within Universities and Industry including campus IT Security Manager, contract IT trainer, Unix administrator and Web developer.
Deputy Director
Dr Ben Evans
HPC And data innovation
Dr Ben Evans is NCI’s Deputy Director for HPC and Data Innovation/Chief Scientist (previously named Associate Director for Research Engagement and Initiatives). He is responsible for driving innovation in future HPC and data-driven science with NCI major collaborators in prioritised strategic activities, including NCI’s partners, research communities, and national and international collaborators. He leads a team of specialists in data science and data management, computational model and software development, and scientific visualisations, with the focus on harnessing the full power of NCI’s National Tier 1 high-performance capabilities, digital assets, and new innovations to address the ongoing challenges of high-performance computing and data-driven research.
Ben has developed NCI’s strategic programs in Climate, Weather, Environment, and Geoscience, which support research and national/international collaborations across the university and government scientific community.
