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, Research Computing
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
Executive Director
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.
Research Computing Student Assistants
Akshit Hasmukh Kumar Jain
Lead Graduate Research Assistant
a.hasmukhkumarjain@northeastern.edu
Naga Sai Sarada Priya Mandala
Co-op
n.mandala@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
- Anusha Manohar
- Rohit Nair
- Hrishikesh Sanjay Pawar
- Surya Periaswamy
- Vrushali Phaltankar
- Girish Pillai
- Arjun Prashanth
- Sriram Ravindran
- Paarthvi Sharma
- Aparna Shelar
- Prajwal Shenoy
- Nour Shoreibah
- 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.
