Experienced Systems Engineer Rainer Karcher Joins ACEP
Rainer Karcher joined ACEP as a DevOps engineer.
May 26, 2023
By Yuri Bult-Ito
An experienced systems engineer, Rainer Karcher has recently joined ACEP as a Development Operations, or DevOps, engineer. Working alongside Dhaha Nur, another recent DevOps engineer addition to the team, Karcher’s work focuses on maintenance and improvement of ACEP’s IT cyberinfrastructure. Together, they plan to build better processing pipelines for our research data collection and archiving, as well as more robust and reliable network systems to facilitate communication and data analysis among our research groups.
Karcher came to his present career in a somewhat unusual way. With a freshly earned bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Mandarin Chinese from the University of Alabama and intent on pursuing an academic career in anthropology and/or archaeology, he was unexpectedly recruited to be a systems engineer at a large medical software corporation in the Midwest.
He began intense hands-on technical training in software development and systems administration as DevOps principles were emerging in the IT industry. He later worked for the University of Kansas Medical Center’s magnetic resonance imaging clinical research center as a research associate, contributing as a hybrid IT administrator and research data analyst. Since then, his IT work has shifted to a remote office.
While accumulating a vast array of niche expertise and technical proficiencies, Karcher was growing tired of the corporate environment. When he found ACEP, it was a perfect match for his desire to return to the academic world, specifically a DevOps-minded position in IT support of grant-funded research aims.
The DevOps role at ACEP was “especially appealing for the prolific and interdisciplinary nature of ACEP’s work and the adventurous, egalitarian spirit of the people driving that work,” he noted.
Based out of his home in Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf Coast, Karcher’s pastimes include playing the guitar and drums, and working on his “rarely-running” motorcycle. He can also be found pulling weeds with his partner while tending to their garden, where they are growing purple tomatoes, blue potatoes, corn, squash, and beans.