Team

Research Computing Team

Arsalan Akhter

Research Computing Specialist

Arsalan supports researchers with their software-related queries on the cluster, and also interfaces with the HPC on a system level. In addition, he contributes to documenting technical and policy details of the HPC cluster for the Northeastern community. Arsalan brings an expertise of more than 15 years in Robotics to Research Computing at Northeastern, and is passionate about connecting with and supporting researchers in Robotics, ML, Operations Research and Systems Engineering.

Rufus Behr

Research Software Engineer

Rufus Behr is responsible for designing and implementing well-engineered software solutions that enhance research productivity and reliability. He earned his BSc in Computing Science and Mathematics from the University of Aberdeen, where his undergraduate thesis was on Author-styled Latin Text Generation. His prior work experience includes developing software in insurance, finance, and academic research settings.

Serena Caplins, PhD

Associate Bioinformatician

Serena has extensive experience with non-model organism genomics, including de novo genome or transcriptome assembly, genome annotation, genome liftover, variant calling, and population genetics. She is eager to help biologists with their computing needs and is skilled in experimental design (GWAS, Population genetics, and quantitative genetics), data analysis, and visualization in RStudio. Serena earned her PhD from UC Davis in Population Biology.

Joseph Cooke, PhD

Computational Scientist

Joseph assists researchers across multiple departments with utilizing high performance computing (HPC) resources through direct interactions. He has been working with HPC resources to model magnetic materials, including studying magnetization and energy flow with a primary focus on numerical stability in spin-lattice dynamics since 2014. Joseph also has experience in benchmarking scientific code to determine optimal run conditions on HPC resources. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Tara Ketchem

Documentation, Training and Outreach Specialist

Tara is tasked with the goal of bridging documentation and communication across the teams in the Academic & Research Technologies department. She has a B.A. in Rhetoric and Writing Studies from Western Michigan University. She has been working in technical writing and document management since 2014.

Ghanghoon (Will) Paik, PhD

HPC Performance Engineer

Ghanghoon (Will) holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State University. With a background in high performance computing (HPC), he specializes in optimizing computational efficiency and performance for complex systems. His research interests span robotics, ML/RL, and trajectory optimization, where he applies advanced techniques to solve real-world challenges in these fields.

Timothy Rudenko

HPC Systems Administrator

Timothy Rudenko is an IT professional and HPC Systems Engineer skilled in infrastructure optimization, automation, and high-performance computing. With experience at institutions like Northeastern University and Red Hat, he focuses on system migrations, cloud solutions, and operational reliability. A graduate in Information Security, he combines technical expertise with leadership to drive innovation.

Khurshid Shaymardanov, PhD

HPC Systems Engineer

Khurshid graduated from Politecnico di Torino, Italy back in 2014 as a PhD in Production Systems and Numerical science. Prior to joining Northeastern University as the HPC Systems Engineer, he worked as a DevOps Engineer at Volt Active Data and Linux SysAdmin at Boston College. Khurshid is a father of 2 boys and originally from Uzbekistan. Khurshid also likes to travel and is in love with museums, theater, and volleyball. He is looking to establish a robust career and loves to discover something new everyday.

Eric Tannehill

Sr HPC Systems Administrator

As a Sr System Administrator, Eric is responsible for keeping the underlying systems running smoothly and helping to guide processes, procedures, and technologies to further Research Computing’s goal of enabling Northeastern’s researchers. Eric brings over 20 years of industry experience in enterprise IT and research computing, providing valuable insights into modern practices.

Open Positions

Executive Director, Research Computing

The Executive Director, Northeastern Research Computing is responsible for the development and delivery of high-performance computing infrastructure and capabilities to Northeastern researchers, teaching faculty, and students throughout the university’s global network. Under the direction of Northeastern Office of the Provost, and in consultation with researchers, the executive director enables innovation through development of leading-edge capabilities and delivery of strong, faculty and student centered, efficient support for established research computing functions.

Apply Here

Research Computing Student Assistants

Akshit Hasmukh Kumar Jain

Lead Graduate Research Assistant
a.hasmukhkumarjain@northeastern.edu

Anusha Manohar

Graduate Research Assistant
a.manohar@northeastern.edu

Naga Sai Sarada Priya Mandala

Lead Graduate Research Assistant
n.mandala@northeastern.edu

Nour Shoreibah

Assistant Software Engineer
shoreibah.n@northeastern.edu

Gayathri Ayyar Manjula

Graduate Research Assistant
g.ayyarmanjula@northeastern.edu

Research Computing Student Alumni

Akhil Ajikumar

Rohin Arora

Prasad Bandarkar

Srinjoy Chakravarty

Keval Paresh Chheda

Jiali Cheng

Neelima Cherukuri

Faustin Combe

Gabriela Henao Cure

Deena Dasarathan

Gaurang Davda

Rhea Dcosta

Rakshith Dharmappa

Aakanksha Duggal

Prasanth Dwadasi

Sarah Gracia

Akshit Jain

Khajan Joshi

Tanmay Joshi

Karan Sunil Joisher

Keerthana Jaikumar Kolimarla

Ziqing Lin

Nikhil Manikonda

Rohit Nair

Hrishikesh Sanjay Pawar

Surya Periaswamy

Vrushali Phaltankar

Girish Pillai

Arjun Prashanth

Sriram Ravindran

Paarthvi Sharma

Aparna Shelar

Prajwal Shenoy

Nitish Tyagi

How Can Research Computing Support You?

Accelerate your research at any stage by leveraging our online user guides, hands-on training sessions, and one-on-one guidance.