skip to content

University Information Services

 

The UIS Senior Leadership Team is overseen by the Director, Professor Ian Leslie.

Director

Professor Ian Leslie

Lookup  Lookup

vCard  vCard

Professor Ian Leslie is the Director and is accountable to the Vice-Chancellor. He is also Senior Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor with special responsibility for Information System Strategy and Environmental Sustainability, and chairs the Environmental Sustainability Strategy Committee.

Professor Leslie's research interests have been in computer networks and operating systems and, more recently, he has investigated the use of information systems to reduce energy demand. He was Head of the Computer Laboratory between 1999 and 2004, and from 2004 to 2009 Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research. He has been a Fellow of Christ’s College since 1985, where he has also served as Director of Studies in Computer Science and where he was President from 2014 to 2019. He joined UIS as Director in 2017.

 

Deputy directors and CISO

The UIS Director is supported by the Chief Operating Officer, Deputy Directors and the University's Chief Information and Security Officer:

Paul Calleja, Deputy Director, UIS

Lookup  Lookup

vCard  vCard

Dr Paul Calleja leads the Research Computing Services Division.

He obtained his PhD in computational bio-physics at Bath University. After filling a post-doctoral research position at Birkbeck College, he moved into private industry, where he spearheaded early commercialisation of HPC cluster solutions within the UK.

After six years in the commercial sector Paul returned to academia to lead the new HPC service at Imperial College, London.From there, in 2005 he moved to the University of Cambridge, to form a new HPC service with University-wide capabilities and a novel pay-per-use cloud computing model.

The University of Cambridge now boasts one of the largest academic supercomputing facilities in the UK. Paul is now responsible for the University’s research computing services across all academic disciplines.


Richard Hey

Lookup  Lookup

vCard  vCard

Richard Hey leads the Institution Liaison and Relationship Management division.

Richard was appointed Head of Institution Services in November 2015 with a remit to drive the strategy for, and management of, the Institutional Services function, which encompasses both the School/Departmental IT, College IT and the building of the pan-Cambridge IT community. Immediately before this, Richard was Head of User Services within UIS, where he was responsible for a team of 60, covering a diverse range of IT services and support functions that are now delivered through our Infrastructure division.

Prior to joining the University in 2010, Richard was IT Support Manager for the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College and IT Director at The Oratory School. Richard began his career as a laboratory technician and then School Master and has considerable experience of teaching Physics, Computing Science and IT throughout the Secondary School age range and beyond. He is a Chartered Physicist and has a keen interest in deep sea diving technologies. In parallel to his teaching career, Richard spent over 10 years in the Royal Navy Reserve. 


Chris Russell, Chief Operating Officer at University Information Services

Lookup  Lookup

vCard  vCard

Chris Russell is Chief Operating Officer.

Chris joined the University in July 2023. He had previously worked in central government where he was Chief Product Officer and also led Operations and Strategy for the Cabinet Office Digital team. Prior to this, he was Deputy Director of Product at Government Digital Service.

Chris also has experience working in media and publishing, having been Digital Director at the UK’s largest regional news publisher Trinity Mirror and a product manager at the BBC on its digital news and sport services.


Vijay Samtani

Lookup  Lookup

vCard  vCard

Vijay Samtani is the University's Chief Information Security Officer.

Vijay joined the University in September 2017. Previously, he held the role of Head of Information Security at Royal Mail Group, leading a team delivering security operations, security architectural consultancy, risk management and implementation of new security technologies.

His earlier experience includes architecting and building a managed cyber security service for the consulting firm Deloitte, and designing and then delivering technical security operations and incident management for the London 2012 Olympics. These were preceded by a wide range of security leadership roles with banking and retail companies over a 10-year period.

He is a trustee of Disability Law Service, a charity dedicated to providing free legal advice and advocacy for disabled people.

Other Senior Leadership Team members