Five new team members joined us in July and August. Learn more about their positions and why they are excited to join LSA Technology Services. Welcome Leslie, Aidan, Steven, Sedine, and Theo!
Leslie Bell, HPC Storage Engineer Associate
Leslie was part of the Migration Team at Barracuda Networks. She worked on the Archiver Appliances and the Cloud Archiving Services. While doing migrations for both, she wrote technical documents for the preparation, process, and post investigation for internal and external use. With these documents she would provide one on one training for technicians or end clients.
While on our team, Leslie will be triaging, responding to service requests for HPC/Research Storage by working directly with faculty and other researchers, and creating end user documentation for the services our team supports, while automating basic requests where possible. She will also be working with ARC in ITS to reduce support requests through improvements in process, documentation, and communications.
Leslie is excited to be part of such a fulfilling role in helping aid, encourage, and promote researchers' vast possibilities while building up fellow colleagues. “My aim is to make a positive difference that benefits each situation,” she said.
Aidan Carry, AV Technician
Aidan’s background prior to coming to LSA is mostly technical support for live events. He is a certified audio recording and mixing engineer and has been managing live sound since 2018. He also worked as Camera Operator and Technical Director at Russell Video Services and in his freelance work. Before any of that, Aidan worked on a maple syrup farm with over 1,800 taps!
Aidan joins us as part of the TAG team. He will often be on the phone taking in calls from members of the LSA community and troubleshooting classroom technology here and there. He will also be running a number of film screenings on Wednesday nights in the Modern Languages Building.
Aidan is very excited to work with some very talented people, and especially excited to learn and help out as much as he can. “Everyone has been extremely helpful so far, and I cannot wait to return the favor in the future,” he said.
Steven Snead, Desktop Support Specialist
Steven spent twelve years working as the sole IT staff person for K12 schools systems. He spent the last three years working from home as a DevOps Engineer.
Steven joins us as part of the Hardware Lifecycle Team within Research Computing and Infrastructure. He will be building computers for staff upgrades, handling disposal of old equipment, and supporting other teams any way he can.
When asked what he was most excited about, Steven said, “I am very excited to work in person again and to find new ways to automate and improve our support process.”
Sedine Stanciu, Technology Experience Specialist Associate
Sedine was hired as a research technician at the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) in 2015. Her duties varied widely, from coordinating research studies and interviewing participants to installing and removing data collection devices and assisting with manuscripts. She had a lot of autonomy with respect to how she completed her work, and she found herself most engaged when she could leverage technology to improve the efficiency and quality of her work. In 2019 Sedine considered a career change to IT or AV, ideally remaining at U-M. The pandemic forced her to alter her future plans quite a bit, so she worked at a few different customer service jobs. She did receive an AVIXA AV Technologist certificate this past year.
Sedine joins us as part of the Service Desk team. She will provide tech support to patrons within LSA and will also assist with equipment loans.
Sedine is really excited to start a career in a technical field! While not entirely sure of her ultimate career trajectory, she believes this position will give her an opportunity to interact with a variety of teams in LSA Technology Services that do unique work. In the meantime, Sedine hopes to receive some CompTIA certifications to better perform in her current role and work more smoothly with other teams in LSA Technology Services. She also really likes the people that she’s met so far, stating that “they are all so nice and helpful, and I think it will be a very pleasant and nurturing environment to work in.”
Theo Tangalakis, Technology Experience Specialist
Theo joins our team bringing loads of experience from ITS where he worked with their desktop support team.
Theo joins us as part of the Computing Services team. As a senior level staff member, Theo will act as lead to the team in addition to assisting in taking on a number of initiatives.
