The UT-OSPO is a cross-organizational unit led by experts from the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), central IT services, University of Texas Libraries, and the School of Information to form an umbrella organization that is more than the sum of its parts.
Core Team
-
Dr. Jennifer Schopf
Primary Investigator
Director of Networking Partnerships at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
Dr. Jennifer Schopf has been part of the pragmatic open software use community for over 20 years. While a program officer at NSF, she actively promoted the use of open source licensing for NSF-funded software projects as part of the Data Management Policy Development Team, but she’s also been part of several software projects with strong international uptake, including the Globus Toolkit, the perfSONAR consortium, and the NetSage project.
-
Dr. Angela Newell
Co-Primary Investigator and Director
Executive Director of Innovation for the Chief Information Office
Dr. Newell has been a part of the public and open data environment for nearly 15 years. She was part of the team that, jointly with the White House, developed data.gov, one of the largest open data systems in the world. Dr. Newell has also served as a campus liaison for IT for nearly a decade and is an active participant in the research community as the grant administrator for the Longhorn Innovation Fund for Technology and as a representative of the Chief Information Officer.
-
Michael Shensky
Co-Primary Investigator
Head of Research Data Services for the UT Libraries
Michael has been a strong advocate for the use of open source GIS software over the past decade in his roles as a Geography Lecturer and then as a GIS and Geospatial Data Coordinator. He has significant experience teaching others in for-credit courses and in non-credit workshops offered to the campus community about the benefits of using and engaging with open source software for both instruction and research, and is a current member of the open source FloDisMod team.
-
Alex Marden
OSPO staff member
GIS and Geospatial data Coordinator with the UT Libraries
Alex has utilized open software to facilitate international fieldwork and collaboration as a graduate student researcher. In addition to his research, he has taught numerous open source software-based courses and workshops at UT. As GIS and Geospatial Data Coordinator, he routinely works with members of the campus community to develop open source workflows for their research.
-
Michelle McDermott
Executive Assistant
Interim Executive Assistant to the CIO and Administrative Associate ITS/FBS