How long have you been with the University?

I have been here about 30 years, first as a College student and working full-time since 1995.

What department and/or unit are you in?

I work for the Library, in Digital Strategy and Services, Administrative and Desktop Systems. We handle local computing resources for the Library system and staff. I handle managing systems that run a virtual cluster of VMs (virtual machines), including running the Mansueto book retrieval system, inventory and security controls, and other backend needs for our desktop environment.

What is your education or training?

I have an AB in Geophysical Sciences from the University. 

How does your job relate to sustainability?

While my day-to-day work is not really involved with it, I do spend time measuring our equipment’s energy use and determine where replacing items can reduce how much energy we use over time. As part of the Library’s sustainability efforts, we added some power saving settings to our PCs. 

My focus is with reusing and resharing equipment that we have retired on UChicago Rheaply. It has been very useful in getting into people’s hands usable machines that would have otherwise depreciated in a storeroom until we had enough to enter into the e-waste recycling stream. As the Library maintains over 600 PCs and replaces them, over time, this can lead to quite a lot of savings for the University as a whole and gives students and staff resources they otherwise wouldn’t have. This includes PCs for postdocs in labs, second monitors for staff, and keyboards and mice for people with laptops. Recently, I have been working with verified donation partners in UChicago Rheaply to provide PCs for community software training, and well over two tons of equipment has been diverted.