About
Our History
IDIES was established in 2008 through the efforts of Dr. Alex Szalay, Dr. Charles Meneveau, and Dr. Sayeed Choudhury. With the onset of the information age, they recognized a gap between the large volumes of data being captured by researchers, and the resources and tools available to store and analyze that data. In this initial phase, funding support from two Johns Hopkins University (JHU) schools—Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) and Whiting School of Engineering (WSE)—and was combined with grant funding to create an incubator and testbed for big data infrastructure and storage.
In 2013, in recognition of the strategic importance of computing and data science across the entire university, JHU President Ron Daniels substantially broadened the scope of IDIES. This expansion included the buy-in and financial support of the President’s Office and five JHU divisions: KSAS, WSE, School of Medicine (SOM), Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH), and the Sheridan Libraries. IDIES became the leader in big data initiatives and responsible for the research computing efforts at JHU.
In 2015, JHU and UMCP, with IDIES, opened the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center (MARCC), a world-class research computing facility, with the support of a $30M grant from the State of Maryland. Today the MARCC facility operates under the purview of Advanced Research Computing at Hopkins (ARCH).
In 2022, as part of the broader Virtual Institute in Scientific Software (VISS) effort by Schmidt Sciences, Johns Hopkins University’s new pan-institutional initiative the Data Science and AI Institute helped establish within IDIES the Scientific Software Engineering Center (SSEC) to facilitate cutting-edge advancements in modern data-intensive research science.
In summer 2024, IDIES officially became a federated institute under the Johns Hopkins Data Science and AI Institute (DSAI).
Today, IDIES is a major interdisciplinary program, a large, diverse effort, where faculty and students work together to solve data-intensive problems, from genes to galaxies to materials science and urban planning.
Our Values
IDIES leads the translation of data science and technology to real world problems across Johns Hopkins University with:
Leadership
- Offer expertise on which solution is best for data needs (IDIES, ARCH, SciServer, etc)
- Guide those who want to integrate data science into research (disruptive technologies)
Agility
- Flexibility to adapt, respond, and integrate new disruptive technologies
Incubation
- Foster collaborations across the university
- Build new tools
Vision
- Expand thinking – identify what needs to be done and help in the “how”
Management
- Storage resource
- Enable high performance computing with stable operations
Growth
- Continuing education and expertise on new and developing technologies; continually offering researchers guidance and expertise in leading edge technology
Development
- Design tools, approaches, and solutions to solve data problems
Our Team
Executive Committee
Director
Associate Director,
East
Associate Director of Operations
Associate Director, Compute Infrastructure
Director of Science,
Associate Director SSEC
IDIES Staff & Faculty Employees
| First Name | Last Name | Title | Area of Expertise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard | Wilton | Associate Research Scientist | Development of genomic data models, databases, data loading and capacity planning. Also requirements and use cases for the genomics collaborative project. |
| Sue | Werner | Sr. Programmer Analyst | Database Programming & Administration |
| Ani | Thakar | Principal Research Scientist | Data Managment, Project Management |
| Manuchehr | Taghizadeh Popp | Research Scientist | |
| Alex | Szalay | Professor, Director of IDIES | |
| Kate | Stevens | Communications Specialist | Webmaster, Communications Materials, Project Management |
| Jeffrey | Roskes | Associate Research Scientist | |
| Jordan | Raddick | Instructional Designer | Website Content Developement and Managment, Educational Outreach |
| Jason | Postlethwait | Lan Administrator III | Hardware Maintenance, Hardware Procurement |
| Victor | Paul | Software Engineer | Database administration, Data Management |
| Brian | Mohr | Sr. Systems Engineer | Hardware Design & Maintenance, Infrastructure Network & Systems, Operating Systems (Linux), Automation programming, Storage Architecture, Project Management, Emerging Technologies |
| Arik | Mitschang | Research Scientist | Distributed Systems, Big Data, Cloud Technologies, Applications Programming, Web Services, Emerging Technologies |
| Dmitry | Medvedev | Sr. Software Developer | Applications programming, Web Services, Emerging Technologies |
| Gerard | Lemson | Principal Research Scientist | Associate Director for SciServer, cosmology simulation lead, use cases for cosmology, numerical laboratory development for cosmology, development of Job Management Subsystem, developer collaboration layer. |
| Jai Won | Kim | Research Scientist | (Meta)Data modeling and Schema development, Application programming |
| Lance | Joseph | Sr. Systems Administrator | Database Administration, Hardware Design & Maintenance, Infrastructure Network, Operating Systems (Windows & Linux), Real Time Monitoring, Storage Architecture, Emerging Technologies |
| Steven | Handy | Sr. Bioinformatics Software Engineer | |
| Margaret | Eminizer | Associate Research Scientist | |
| Kyle | Edwards | LAN Administrator III | Hardware Maintenance, Operating Systems (Windows & Linux), Fixed Asset Management |
| Laszlo | Dobos | Associate Research Scientist | Machine Learning, Emerging Technologies |
| Chantal | Boisvert | Sr. Grants & Contracts Analyst | IDIES Post Award Management (Szalay, Lemson, Thakar) |
| Mike | Schnaubelt | Software Developer | Algorithm Development, Data Analysis |
| Kelvin J. | Green | LAN Administrator III | |
| Charles | Glaser | Systems Engineer | |
| Tamás | Budavári | Associate Professor | Applied Mathematics and Statistics |
| Juliana | Jaime | Sr. Programmer Analyst | |
| David | Elbert | Research Scientist | |
| Samuel | Roberts | Grants & Contracts Analyst | |
| Samuel | Carliles | Associate Research Scientist | |
| Ryan | Hausen | Assistant Research Scientist |
IDIES In memoriam
Ying Dai
IDIES Database Analyst
until February 2025
Ying joined IDIES in 2019. In the database group, Ying worked on high profile projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Johns Hopkins Turbulence Database (JHTDB), providing critical support of these multi-terabyte open databases via routine database maintenance, such as backups and restores, and deploying new instances of SQL Server.
Jan Vandenberg
IDIES CHIEF IT Architect
until 2021
Jan was the chief systems IT architect for IDIES and was an expert in hardware design and maintenance, infrastructure network and services, operating systems (Linux & Windows), automation programming, real-time monitoring, storage architecture, and emerging technologies.
Our Open Positions
No open positions at this time.
Other Johns Hopkins University career opportunities can be found here.
How to Cite Us
Sharing the outcomes of IDIES funding programs and/or the use of IDIES resources improves community awareness and understanding of how we provide intellectual leadership in data driven science.
Acknowledgement for IDIES funding program support
“Funding for this research was provided by the Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) under their [seed funding/ student fellowship] funding program.”
Acknowledgement for use of IDIES resources
“We acknowledge that this research makes use of [SciServer, IDIES Data Center], a resource developed and operated by the Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES).
Our Contact Information
Our offices are currently located in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus.
Delivery Address:
All deliveries (FedEx, UPS, shipments, etc.) should be mailed to:
IDIES
Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy
3701 San Martin Drive; Room 366
Baltimore, MD 21218
Mailing Address:
IDIES
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Who to contact for questions about:
General Questions
idies-support@lists.johnshopkins.edu
Website
idies-webmaster@lists.johnshopkins.edu
Finance
idies-billing@lists.johnshopkins.edu
