Biography

Hi, my name is Vince Abrahamson, Team Lead Cyber Defense Analyst for the Office of Cybersecurity, DoIT. I have been an employee of UW-Madison for 5 years with a focus on network and firewall security analysis. Prior to UW-Madison I was a network and system administrator and IT consultant for 5 years for a Madison based managed-service provider (MSP). My wife and I moved to Madison 10 years ago from Eugene, OR, where I was part of a team at an MSP doing out-sourced IT for small and medium sized businesses. My professional background allowed me to jump into the distributed nature of our IT environment to best promote and support our current and future cybersecurity tools and services for campus.

2024 Session

Cybersecurity Appscanner: New features and best practices for secure web apps

2021 Session

User Groups – Combining Community and Technology in Higher Education (with Live Q&A)

Biography

David Baik is an IT Rotator at the Job Rotational Program here at UW-Madison. Born, raised, and grazed in Wisconsin, he graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a degree in Information Science and Technology. He previously was at the DoIT Help Desk as a Walk-In agent, where he helped troubleshoot a myriad of issues. His current rotation is at the School of Education’s MERIT, where he continues to help support and assist users, alongside working on a computer inventory management project. David enjoys playing games, reading, writing, and drawing in his spare time. 

2024 Session

Job Rotation Program Information Session

Biography

Spencer Bailey first started his journey at UW as an undergraduate student. In his final year pursuing his Bachelor’s Degree he began his IT career assuming a student helpdesk role at SMPH’s Department of Psychiatry. Once graduated from UW in May 2023 with a B.S. in Computer Sciences and Data Science alongside a Graphic Design Certificate, he continued his journey with UW joining OHR’s Job Rotation Program as an IT Rotator. Through the program he has gotten to support the CALS Administrative IT Unit, as well as the IT Engineering Team at the School of Veterinary Medicine, and looks forward to serving other IT units around campus through the Job Rotation Program. Outside of UW, Spencer volunteers at the Friends of the Madison Public Library Bookstore, and enjoys spending time outdoors, playing games, and spending time with his two cats Chun Li and Kiki.

2024 Session

Job Rotation Program Information Session

Biography

Thomas Blader is a seasoned IT professional with a diverse background in Linux administration, software development, AWS Cloud Infrastructure, and IT security. With over two decades of experience, Thomas has established himself as a versatile technologist adept at tackling complex infrastructure challenges and developing innovating solutions. His journey with UW Madison began in 2009, where he joined the Department of Family Medicine, focusing initially on Linux administration before expanding into roles involving cloud and on-prem infrastructure, mobile app development, and cybersecurity. In 2023, Thomas transitioned to the role of DevOps Engineer with the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, continuing his tenure with UW Madison and concentrating on supporting the cloud-driven initiatives of the Bioinformatics division.

2024 Session

Enhancing your serverless development process

Biography

My name is Kevin Breese. I’ve been an IT professional for just over 38 years. For the first 14 years of my career, I worked in various application development and analysis roles. In 2000 I moved into a managerial role, overseeing application development and support teams. In 2013 I came to UW Madison as the IT Director for the Wisconsin Union. I moved to AIMS in 2019 as the Customer engagement and Learning Services manager. My current title is that of Associate Director, Technical Services and I work in User Services/Departmental Support area at DoIT, where I manage the Technical Services/Field Services team. My team is made up of approximately 14 full time staff and a handful of students.

2024 Session

Choppy waters ahead! Insights on navigating IT mergers

Biography

Lois Brooks joined the UW-Madison as vice provost for information technology and CIO in August, 2018. Prior to that she served as Oregon State University’s vice provost for information services and chief information officer. She is active nationally in the higher education community, having served in leadership and governance roles with the Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, Unizin, Educause Learning Initiative, and Internet2. She also served for many years at Stanford University, most recently as Director of Academic Computing. During her tenure at Stanford she co-founded the Sakai Foundation, serving on the Board of Directors and later as Executive Director.

2025 Session

Welcome & Keynote – The Only Constant is Change

2024 Session

Understanding the New Federal Requirements for Research Security

2021 Session

CIO’s Office Hours – Live Event

2020 Session

CIO’s Office Hours

Biography

Mike Collins is the Senior Director of Research Computing at the School of Medicine and Public Health. His teams support several School and Campus-wide applications for clinical trial management, a secure data enclave in Azure, called Platform X, and are developing a High-Performance Computing Cluster for use with restricted data. He has over 12 years of experience architecting cloud solutions in AWS, GCP and Azure. As a former software engineer, he developed several enterprise applications, including for two startups. As an advocate for automation and repeatability he promotes the use of DevOps Engineering best practices and use of CICD pipelines. He’s also had the responsibility of creating and maintaining a FISMA moderate as well as several HIPAA compliant environments.

2024 Session

Platform X: How SMPH implemented a secure data enclave