Directors of NUIT manage ten NUIT departments, along with NUIT senior management Mort Rahimi, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Patricia Todus, Associate Vice President and Deputy Chief Technology Officer, and Thomas Board, Associate Vice President of Cyberinfrastructure.
Administration & Finance
Steven Beck, Director
Steve Beck joined Northwestern University in 1992 as Vice President of Administration and Finance for Northwestern Technologies Group (NTG). In that capacity, he effectively functioned as NTG's chief financial officer with responsibility for all financial and administrative activities of NTG.
Prior to joining NTG, he spent most of his professional career with the A.C. Nielsen Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dun & Bradstreet Company. Starting in the corporate financial department of Nielsen in 1977, Steve advanced through a series of promotions to become the company's Assistant Controller and later Vice President and Director of Finance for the Media Research Division (better known as the "Nielsen Ratings"). Steve earned an Accounting degree from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago.
Contact: s-beck@northwestern.edu
Management Systems (ITMS)
Betty Brugger, Director
Betty Brugger joined Northwestern University in 1977 as a Systems Analyst and has earned a series of promotions, culminating in her current position as Director of Management Systems. Prior industry experience includes systems engineering experience with IBM, and system analysis/application programming with Searle Analytic and with Columbus Hospital in Chicago.
Betty attended the University of Michigan and later earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics from Tuskegee University in Alabama. Her professional affiliations include membership in EDUCAUSE (since 1979), having served on the Information Resources Committee, the Midwest Database Users Group and the Administrative Awards Committee. She has been a member of the HEUG, Oracle's PeopleSoft Users Group for Higher Education, since its inception, having served on its Board and Communications Committee. She represents Northwestern as a member of the CIC Administrative Systems Directors.
As Assistant Director of Management Systems for NUIT, she organized a Big 10 group comprised of colleagues in similar positions to collaborate on application development issues. This group meets semi-annually hosted by each campus.
She has been very active in civic organizations, including as a board member of the Evanston Community Foundation where she chaired the Grants Committee, helping to establish ECF's affiliation with Northwestern's Dance Marathon. She has been a member of the Board of the St. Francis Center for Women's Health; member of the League of Women Voters where she serves as a deputy voter registrar; Leadership Evanston and The Evanston North Shore Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta (a public service sorority). She has been PTA President for Dewey School in District 65 and has held several other PTA positions for Nichols School and ETHS.
Northwestern University leadership activities include the mentoring program for minority freshmen students and serving as a founding member of ANUW (Association of Northwestern University Women).
Contact: b-brugger@northwestern.edu
Telecommunications & Network Services (TNS)
David Carr, Director
David Carr joined Northwestern University in 1998 as Associate Director for Telecommunications and Network Services. David was brought to Northwestern soon after the merging of Voice and Data Networking services, to assist in the cohesive merger of the two groups and facilitate growth of the campus networking infrastructure.
David is presently responsible for voice, data and video systems across the Northwestern campuses. The unit provides design and engineering for cable infrastructure work, upgrades to all PBX and associated voice systems, as well as design and management of the campus high speed network backbone and connectivity to the Internet, vBNS, MREN, and Abilene.
Prior to joining Northwestern, David worked in the consulting arm of UB Networks, providing professional services to customers, specifically in regard to network security and firewalls. David also worked for the University of Buffalo as Manager of Network Engineering, providing network services and engineering services for the campus. Additionally, David has served on a variety of state and regional network consortia in New York and Illinois.
David earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Buffalo and a Masters of Information Technology degree from Northwestern University.
Contact: d-carr@northwestern.edu
Information and Systems Security/Compliance
David Kovarik, Director
Dave joined Northwestern in 2004 as the director of Information and Systems Security/Compliance. Dave provides leadership, guidance and direction to raise awareness, develop principles, policies and security architecture for the University. He is responsible for monitoring government regulations and compliance issues, and collaborates with departments and schools on security direction and issues. Dave and his staff focus their efforts on improving and maintaining a high level of security throughout the University, and help ensure that NUIT is prepared to respond to disaster scenarios through implementation and execution of its Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans.
Before coming to Northwestern, Dave was Vice President and Information Security Manager for Branch Banking & Trust, Wilson , North Carolina . He managed the development and implementation of detailed information protection requirements for computer systems company-wide, led a staff of 25 professionals responsible for the protection of systems and networks, and developed corporate information protection policies and standards.
His prior experience includes security consultation services to a number of Fortune 500 corporate and financial clients and 12 years as the Information Security Officer of southern California's largest thrift organization. Dave holds designations of Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).
Contact: david-kovarik@northwestern.edu
International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR)
Joe Mambretti, Director
Joel J. Mambretti is Director of the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University , which is focused on developing digital communications for the 21st Century. The Center, which was created in partnership with a number of major high-tech corporations, focuses on large scale next-generation communications infrastructure, networks, and applications (metro, regional, national, and international). The Center also undertakes public policy projects related to large scale communications infrastructure.
He is also Director of the Metropolitan Research and Education Network, or MREN, an advanced high-performance network interlinking organizations in seven upper-Midwest states. MREN, which designed and developed the world's first GigaPOP, is now designing the Optical MREN, based on wavelength switching. With its corporate partners, iCAIR has established the Optical Metro Network Initiative, which has created the OMNInet testbed, the world's first 10GE service trial, based on dynamic wavelength switching.
iCAIR has partnered with the Electronic Visualization Lab of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory and other research partners to create and manage StarLight , an international and national communications exchange facility for global advanced networks in Chicago . StarLight is the successor to the Science and Technology Advanced Research Transit Access Point (STARTAP.net), funded by the National Science Foundation.
Joe is a founding member of the worldwide TransLight facility for advanced networks and of the Global Lambda Integrated Facility initiative, which is creating a worldwide facility for next-generation global communications based on optical networks. Other iCAIR projects have created large-scale networks for advanced digital media including the world's first Global Internet Digital Video Network, and joint research with C-SPAN.
Joe serves on the executive committee of I-WIRE, which has created a statewide optical network for research in the State of Illinois . He is a member of Chicago 's Council of Technology Advisors (MCTA), the Governor's Broadband Task Force for Illinois , and has Chaired the Council's Committee on Information Technology Infrastructure.
He has been a member of numerous committees, projects, and initiatives directed at shaping national, state, local, and international communications policy related to large-scale infrastructure development and implementation. Also, he has served on the advisory boards of major technology corporations, is a frequent speaker at national and international communications technology forums, and he has authored multiple scholarly articles on advanced communications. Among his publications are two books published by Wiley, “Grid Networks: Enabling Grids with Advanced Communication Technology” “Next Generation Internet: Creating Advanced Networks and Services.”
Contact: j-mambretti@northwestern.edu
Computing Services (ITCS)
Dana Nielsen, Director
Dana Nielsen joined Northwestern in 1978. Dana began his career designing and managing Northwestern's current Student System, and was promoted to Assistant Director of Management Systems in 1980 to work on administrative software support for Payroll, Financial Management (CUFS) and Alumni. He continued supporting administrative functions as Director of Management Systems from 1982 to 1990. In 1990, University Management Systems split into two autonomous units, University Management Systems and Computing Services (University Computer Center).
Dana accepted leadership for the Computing Services department, providing a computing production environment for the entire university. He completed the transition to the commercial version of NOTIS in 1992.
Before joining Northwestern, Dana was a consultant for American Valuation Consultants and Indiana Information Controls in new application development. He graduated from Ball State University with a BS in Mathematics.
Contact: d-nielsen@northwestern.edu
Research & Academic Technologies (R&AT)
Bob Taylor, Director
Bob Taylor arrived at Northwestern in December 1991 to found the Instructional Technology Group and to help shape Northwestern's efforts in Smart Classroom development. His focus here has been on moving academic technologies beyond the "early pioneers" stage and into the mainstream of most faculty members' work in the classroom and in research.
Bob worked at the University of Rochester Computing Center from 1982 until 1991. He left there as an Assistant Director of the Center and was in charge of faculty services, the development of relations with the supercomputing center at Cornell, and the creation of new teaching labs.
Previously, Bob worked as a research associate in the Community Biology Group at the University of Michigan and owned an award-winning old house restoration finishing business in upstate New York. Bob has a BA in Mathematics.
Contact: bob-taylor@northwestern.edu
Technology Support Services (TSS)
Wendy Woodward, Director
Wendy Woodward joined the Northwestern team in April of 1999 as manager of the Student Employee Group of Academic Technologies (AT). She later became the manager of Development and Administration and assumed the role of acting manager of AT Learning Technologies. After several years' management experience with Academic Technologies, Wendy was promoted to associate director, and later to director, of Technology Support Services (TSS) in January of 2004.
In her current role, she is responsible for customer service interactions between NUIT and the University community. The TSS group includes NUIT communications, faculty and staff desktop support, the technical support center (primary help desk), telecommunications and networking consulting services, residential networking support, site licensed software distribution, and Web-based application support.
Wendy's previous experience includes executive management responsibility in customer focused, technologically enhanced operations. She has a B.A. in Organizational Management from North Park University in Chicago and is working towards an M.S. in Communication System Strategy and Management at Northwestern University .
Wendy is actively involved in the CIC (Consortium for Institutional Cooperation), EDUCAUSE, and ACUTA (the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education). She also contributes as an advisory board member for Pinnacle Software. She also contributes as an advisory board member for Pinnacle Software and is an active member of Google's Higher Education Collaboration Advisory Board.
Contact: wwk@northwestern.edu
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