Director of Information Technology, Kersten Institute

Department

• Crown Administrative Office
• About the Department

• As one of the first schools of social work in the United States, the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice has shaped the field for more than 100 years. As part of the University of Chicago, the Crown Family School shares the University's core values and distinctive intellectual culture. Crown Family School faculty, staff, and students focus on identifying solutions to complex social problems through research, training, and direct community engagement. Guided by an interdisciplinary tradition, Crown Family School scholars conduct innovative research to address interconnected social challenges such as educational inequality, health disparities, crime and violence, poverty, and child and family welfare—working at multiple scales, from individual to policy-level interventions. More than 10,000 Crown Family School graduates in the US and globally hold leadership positions in academia, at nonprofits, in business, and at governmental agencies. The Crown Family School is the home of three academic centers. These include the Susan and Richard Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development, the Kersten Institute for Urban Education, and the Center for Climate, Health, and Society (CHAS). More information may be found at https://crownschool.uchicago.edu/.
• Job Summary

The Director of Information Technology leads technology operations, information security, and research computing support for the Kersten Institute for Urban Education, a research institute whose units collect and analyze sensitive educational data on Chicago schools and students under data-use agreements with district and state partners.

Reporting to the Crown Senior IT Director with a dotted line to the Sr. Associate Dean of Administration, the Director is the technology leader for Kersten, combining hands-on technical execution with team oversight and research partnership. The Director is accountable for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Kersten data and for the systems and staff computing environment that support it. The Director is also a change agent for identifying and implementing technological advancements to streamline operations for Kersten employees, and identifying opportunities for adoption within the broader Crown technology landscape.

The role operates within Crown's overall IT structure and standards, while addressing the distinct technical and compliance requirements of Kersten’s data-intensive research environment. In collaboration with the Senior IT Director, the Director sets the direction for supporting the technical needs of Kersten employees and owns Kersten’s compliance posture with University policy and external regulatory obligations. The role will bridge efforts across the Kersten and Crown IT teams, increasing synergy for the overall Crown technology landscape.

The Director supervises one desktop support and two systems administration specialists, supporting over a hundred Kersten employees, including education researchers, practitioners, and affiliates across multiple projects and funding streams.

Categories of responsibilities and approximate percentages are as follows:

• Team Leadership and Service Management (25%)
• Information Security, Compliance, and Risk (25%)
• Infrastructure, Endpoint, and Identity Management (20%)
• Research Computing Partnership (15%)
• Institutional Representation and Governance (10%)
• Vendor, Licensing, and Budget Support (5%)

Responsibilities

• •Manage the day-to-day operations and existing architecture for Kersten’s IT infrastructure, which includes on-premises servers and hypervisors, cloud accounts, virtual desktop infrastructure, database servers, and web application platforms hosting Kersten and project sites.
• •Supervise Kersten’s technical specialists, who support systems administration, infrastructure and database administration, and provide desktop support, with accountability for hiring, onboarding, work assignment, performance management, and professional development.
• •Set priorities across competing project and service demands, and maintain work-tracking and documentation systems, including issue templates, wikis, and operational runbooks.
• •In collaboration with the Crown IT team and an aim to create synergies across team processes, establish and maintain standard processes for technical set up for new hires, device provisioning, and account lifecycle management, including technical components of employee offboarding.
• •Function as the top point of escalation for the most complex technical issues, including systems administration, database administration, and network infrastructure, serving as a working technical lead.
• •Serve as Kersten’s information security lead, complementing and/or maintaining synergy with Crown’s security framework and standards.
• •Conduct Kersten’s annual security framework assessment and coordinate Kersten's response to University and external audit findings, in consultation with the Sr. IT Director.
• •Administer the security training program across core, privileged, and research-user tiers for Kersten employees, while undertaking steps to consolidate the program for adoption across all of Crown.
• •Direct incident response for endpoint detection alerts, vulnerability findings, and exposure events, including triage, remediation, and after-action documentation, updating the Sr. IT Director, when warranted.
• •Review data security agreements and vendor security assessments for Kersten projects.
• •Maintain controls appropriate to the Kersten’s data sensitivity, including endpoint encryption, privileged access management, backup and recovery, and vulnerability scanning.
• •Stay abreast of emerging regulatory obligations affecting research and administrative systems, collaborating with the Sr. IT Director to translate them into unit-level action.
• •Administer endpoint and identity management across a mixed Windows, macOS, and Linux environment.
• •Evaluate capacity and update the Kersten IT continuity and disaster-recovery plans, including dependencies on data center facilities outside Kersten’s control.
• •Coordinate with external web and application development vendors whose work runs on Kersten infrastructure.
• •Set standards and oversee execution for the managed staff computing fleet across Windows, MacOS, and Linux, including enterprise mobility management, operating system and third-party patch management, configuration baselines, and hardware refresh cycles.
• •Own identity and access administration, including group-based entitlement management, single sign-on integrations, and enterprise password management.
• •Partner with Kersten research staff on computing needs for data collection, analysis, and dissemination, including secure handling of restricted datasets and support for statistical and survey platforms. Resolve escalated issues affecting Kersten research operations.
• •Represent Kersten in Crown IT planning processes and the University’s IT Leadership Council and equivalent University-wide bodies, in partnership with the Sr. IT Director.
• •Convene and chair Kersten’s Technology Leadership Committee, a standing forum with unit representatives for technology priorities, staffing changes, and policy decisions.
• •Translate central initiatives - identity modernization, enterprise platform changes, AI governance - into Kersten planning, and in collaboration with the Crown IT team.
• •Partner with the Sr. IT Director in development and implementation of acceptable-use guidance for emerging technologies, including agentic AI tooling, and serve as Kersten’s designated contact for University compliance inventories.
• •Maintain working relationships with University IT organizations and external vendors relevant to Kersten’s research mission.
• •Partner with the Sr. IT Director on infrastructure design and capital planning.
• •Manage Kersten’s technology budget in coordination with the Sr. IT Director, includ