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Organization & Governance

Lead institution and subaward

Role Institution Lead
Lead The University of Arizona PI T.L. Swetnam
Subaward UNC Chapel Hill / RENCI Co-PI T. Russell (iRODS Data Mesh, Goal 2)

Leveraged partners (no funds flow)

  • NSF ACCESS-CI / Jetstream-2 (Indiana University)
  • TACC (UT Austin) — CyVerse Data Store mirror, Corral backup integration
  • OpenStorageNetwork (ACCESS-CI federation)

Early adopters (no funds flow)

  • ESIIL (CU Boulder, DBI-2153040)
  • NCEMS (Penn State, DBI-2335029)
  • AIIRA (Iowa State, NIFA-1027030)

University of Arizona team

Principal Investigator

  • T.L. Swetnam (PI, 0.75 FTE / 9 cal mo) — Overall scientific and technical direction; chairs the Change Control Board.

Co-PIs

  • D. Ebert (Co-PI AI/ML, 0.04 FTE) — AI/ML oversight, AI2S integration.
  • A. "Barney" Maccabe (Co-PI HPC, 0.04 FTE) — HPC integration and architectural guidance.
  • L. Cao (Co-PI Lakehouse / Goal 1, 0.167 FTE) — Lakehouse architecture and database systems.

Senior Personnel

  • I. Choi (DuckLake / Lakehouse Software) — Database prototype, query patterns; UC3 IoT data ingestion.
  • TBD (LLM / RAG / MCP) — Agentic-AI platform development (Goal 3 replacement key personnel; recruitment in Q1).
  • W. Jentner (RSE Supervision, UI/UX, prototype QA) — Documentation and admin guides; cross-cuts WBS 7.1.
  • E. Skidmore (IT Architecture Manager) — Architectural oversight; ACCESS-CI integration; Jetstream-2 sub-award liaison; sandbox security.

Software Engineers (Y1-front-loaded)

  • S. Roberts (Lead RSE, Goal 3 lead) — System integration, CI/CD, MCP server / RAG / Agentic AI prototype.
  • J. Frady (DevOps RSE) — DevOps, Kubernetes, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code.
  • T. Edgin (Senior RSE) — iRODS / Data Mesh integration; Lakehouse–Mesh interoperability.

Faculty Senior Personnel (Use-Case and Training Leads, 9-month appointments)

  • G. Chism — Training, Educator Fellows, ESIIL/NCEMS/AIIRA onboarding.
  • J. Chen — UC3 IoT sensor-network and edge-computing use case.
  • C.K. Chan — UC2 EHT data-processing use case (sub-PB demonstration).

Graduate Research Assistants

  • GRA 1 (CS — Agentic AI / MCP)
  • GRA 2 (CS — Database / Lakehouse)
  • GRA 3 (ECE — Security / Federated AuthZ)
  • GRA 4 (ECE — 5G/6G Edge)

Project Operations

  • Project Operations Manager (TBN) — Day-to-day project management, partner coordination, NSF reporting, subaward management, advisory-board logistics, follow-on-proposal preparation.

RENCI subaward personnel

  • T. Russell (Co-PI, Subsite PI, 0.50 FTE flat) — Goal 2 Data Mesh lead.
  • K. Draughn (Chief Technologist) — Policy-engine and federation prototyping.
  • A. King (Senior Software Developer) — Policy-engine, federation testing.
  • J. James (Senior Application Engineer) — Policy-engine, Lakehouse–Mesh integration.

Decision authority and escalation

Decision Class Authority Escalation Path
Day-to-day execution within baseline PI; Goal Leads (Cao, Russell, Roberts) Resolved at weekly stand-up
Within-budget reallocation (minor) PI + Project Ops Manager Notify CCB at next monthly meeting
Cross-Goal scope or schedule change Change Control Board (CCB) PI escalates to NSF PO if baseline impact
Subaward rebudget / scope change PI + Co-PI Russell + UA OSP + UNC OSP NSF PO notification per PAPPG
Baseline scope/schedule/budget change CCB; PI signs change request Formal NSF PO concurrence
External-advisory recommendations PI considers; CCB ratifies action items Logged in CCB minutes
Personnel hire/replacement (key personnel) PI + UA HR 30-day notification to NSF PO
Security incident Skidmore (IT Arch Mgr) + PI UA Information Security IR plan; NSF PO notification if award-impacting

Change Control Board (CCB)

Chaired by the PI; membership includes Co-PIs and the Project Operations Manager. The CCB ratifies any change to the baseline scope, schedule, or budget defined in the PEP.

External AI Ethics Advisory Board

The External AI Ethics Advisory Board meets twice per year (in person or virtual) to review:

  1. Data-governance policy decisions affecting community use.
  2. AI / agentic-AI deployment safety.
  3. Early-adopter community engagement and equity.
  4. The evolving sustainability and follow-on-proposal plan.

Membership of 3–4 external experts with annual honoraria plus travel. Recommendations are advisory; the PI and CCB decide adoption and document rationale in meeting minutes.

Ethics board details