November 19, 2019

UOW technology head honoured at national CIO Awards

Fiona Rankin among Australia’s Top 25 CIOs for Molecular Horizons Facility technology solution

University of Wollongong (UOW) Director of Information Management and Technology Services (IMTS), Fiona Rankin, has been named among Australia’s top 25 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at the 2019 CIO Magazine CIO50 Awards.

One of only four women who made the Top 25 list, Ms Rankin (pictured) was also named the top performing CIO within the higher education sector, competing against a highly competitive field of finalists from some of Australia's largest organisations and IT businesses.

The CIO50 list recognises Australia's 50 most innovative and effective CIOs or heads of technology who are influencing rapid change across their organisations and leading the IT function by driving innovative technology projects that have transformed business processes.

Ms Rankin’s recognition was largely due to the IT infrastructure and networking solutions provided by IMTS for Molecular Horizons: UOW’s Molecular Life Sciences research facility which applies data-mining and machine-learning across massive datasets to deliver health analytics and molecular visualisation.

The research team at Molecular Horizons, headed up by Distinguished Professor Antoine Van Oijen, is leading the way in the fight against super bugs—one of the greatest health challenges facing  the world today—with research into antimicrobial resistance.

This world-leading research is made possible by the University’s investment in two of Australia’s most powerful electron microscopes, the Talos Arctica and itan Krios Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo-EM) microscopes.

“The sensitivity of the microscopes required extensive analysis of the physical site locations in relation to neighbouring buildings, including the in-ground services of power and data to ensure electro-magnetic interference would not be an issue,” Ms Rankin said.

“Due to the high level of security and flexibility required the only option was deployment of a Software Defined Networking model,” she said. 

“The deployment of this technology, a first for the University, allows the programming of the network and provides classification of traffic at a policy level to ensure data is delivered efficiently, securely and at the speed required whether on or off campus.” 

Senior networking staff worked with site managers to understand how data needed to be collected, shared, published and archived while ensuring its integrity and maintaining the necessary protections and security controls.

Using the newly established Research Data & Storage Management (RDSM) capabilities ensured data protection strategies are in place to address disaster recovery and continuity, backups, version control, archiving and auditing requirements. 

The delivery of this Facility involved extensive collaborative effort across UOW, including the Science Medical and Health (SMAH) Faculty, Facilities and the IT Division.

Molecular Horizons is a key element of UOW’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which is being led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Health and Communities) and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, Professor Alison Jones.