Welcome Chris Hoffman
November 16th, 2006 by Ian CrewChris Hoffman, Director of the campus Graduate Division’s IT Department, will be working 40% time from October to April on temporary assignment to IST-DS to help Data Services manage the Berkeley Natural History Museum-IST Re-Architecting Program (Chris remains Director of Graduate Division IT). Chris brings many skills that will benefit this important partnership between BNHM-IST. Please join us in welcoming him to IST and Data Services.
More information about Chris’ background after the jump.
Chris Hoffman came to Berkeley in 1985 as a graduate student studying Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology and graduated in 1993 with a Ph.D. after writing a dissertation titled “The Social and Technological Dimensions of Copper Age and Bronze Age Metallurgy in Mallorca, Spain”. In conducting his research on early Mediterranean metallurgy, he performed archaeological fieldwork, museum research, and laboratory analysis in Spain, England, Canada, and of course here at Cal. He also taught classes, applied for and received grant funding, performed research for other archaeological projects, wrote articles, co-edited a book, and presented his findings at professional conferences. Within the Department of Anthropology, Chris found that his background with computers and his sense for data management and presentation gave him opportunities to pay the bills, so he worked as a programmer supporting departmental staff and faculty and designing FileMaker Pro solutions that replaced index card systems.
After a couple hectic years applying for non-existent academic jobs, Chris decided the student loans would not wait forever and decided to put his IT skills to work, first in the College of Letters & Science as the first non-intern programmer working in the newly founded Letters & Science Computer Resources team. In 1996, Chris took a position as Director of Information Systems in the Graduate Division. In his time there, Chris has managed a team of programmers who are responsible for a complex portfolio of database applications as well as computer operations and support in the Graduate Division. This has given Chris significant project and program management experience. Several of you will also know Chris from his participation in campus committees such as the Information Technology Architecture Committee (ITAC), the Campus Information Security Committee (CISC), the Data Stewardship Council (DSC) and others. In particular Chris was active in the early days of the e-Berkeley Initiative, working with the e-Architecture Working Group (a subcommittee of ITAC) to define standards for application development in support of e-Berkeley and writing several BCC pieces on Identity Management.
The unifying theme of Chris’s work has been in providing solutions for managing and sharing data so that people can educate themselves and make informed decisions. By combining his academic, IT, and project management experience, Chris will make strong contributions to the BNHM-IST Re-Architecture Project.