Associate Director Chris Hoffman’s Move to UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and His Contributions to Research IT

January 28, 2023

As Research IT’s Associate Director Chris Hoffman moves into a new role in UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, we would like to thank him for his incredible efforts and contributions over the years. He began working part-time to manage museum collections for UC Berkeley’s data services organization before it became Research IT in 2013. Years later in 2017, he then transitioned into the role of Assistant Director. 

With a background in anthropology, he aimed to support the needs of the university and their 10 campus museums. UC Berkeley is known for its amazing collections and exhibitions of over a million pieces varying from plants to cultural objects. Much of the old software was not meeting the needs for museum collection management. As a result, Chris, along with the help of his colleague Rick Jaffe, deployed software to 5 museums in CollectionSpace. Both Chris and Rick have collaborated on data management processes with the campus library system. For Chris, his work has focused primarily on community building and trust. By identifying gaps and pain points in campus services, he is able to provide diverse solutions for researchers working with sensitive data. 

When working as the Assistant Director, his favorite part in the role was being at the intersection of different groups including: stakeholders, researchers, systems operations, etc. It was a wonderful opportunity for him to be a part of the overall effort and speak to different researchers from various fields. He expressed that Research IT is such a great group of people that tackle mighty challenges and overcome them. Everyone is very communicative and passionate in their work. The university recognizes the organization’s mission for data and computation platforms.

As one of his close collaborators in Research IT, Rick Jaffe expressed how he will miss Chris’ energy and enthusiasm he brought to the organization. Another one of his colleagues in Research IT, Jason Christopher, also shared how Chris has been a valuable thought partner and always enjoyed opportunities to work with him. We wish Chris Hoffman the best of luck in his new role at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. In this new position, he will continue being a partner of Research IT by using SRDC for research missions by building data sharing and computation abilities for the school’s research group. 

“I have loved and appreciated very much having the opportunity to work with the research IT team and help UC Berkeley researchers do the amazing research that they do. Being there, having an impact, and helping people get their work done.” - Chris Hoffman

“Chris has been an invaluable partner in my time with Research IT. Over the last three years Chris led the development of support for researchers working with sensitive data. This was a multi-year project which ultimately turned into a new platform (SRDC) for research, hosted by Research IT, an unmitigated success. Yet we have worked on many projects together over the last seven years... I’m excited to work with Chris in the future in his new role.” - Jason Christopher