PNNL

Michael Hofmockel aims to increase innovation, reduce risk, and simplify research by elevating scientific data as a principal Pacific Northwest National Laboratory product. Hofmockel has significant expertise in establishing mechanisms and guidance for the acceptance, use, and sharing of data at PNNL with the consideration of societal concerns about ethics, scientific integrity, privacy, and risk. Hofmockel’s role on this investment as the data capability leader tasks him with unifying the project’s data stewardship and infrastructure.

As a data capability lead at PNNL, Hofmockel’s primary contributions have been building capabilities to create consistency in data stewardship and data infrastructure across the institution. Since 2017, he has been part of Research Computing’s Portfolio Team that is charged with investing in and building sustainable capabilities in high-performance computing, machine learning/artificial intelligence, storage, software development, system infrastructure, and data stewardship and infrastructure. These capabilities are institutional and available to all projects at PNNL.

Since 2018, he has led the growth of data capabilities, including DataHub (https://data.pnl.gov) which is a centralized data platform, the Data Stewardship Board, and the data management plan tool. From 2015–2017, he was the director of Institutional Computing at PNNL, a program to support research computing needs across the Laboratory. PIC was the predecessor to Research Computing and was greatly expanded, particularly in data capabilities during this time.

Prior to arriving at PNNL, he was the first Research IT Director for the College of Liberal Arts at Iowa State University. Hofmockel launched the program to leverage economies of scale and best practices in supporting research computing needs within the college.

BFA, Pennsylvania State University, 1996