We are proud to shine the spotlight this month on Timothy Middelkoop, Senior Research Engagement Engineer at Internet2, who was voted 2025 CaRCC Contributor of the Year by you, the CaRCC membership.
You may know Timothy as the backbone of CaRCC operations, quietly managing the tech and software platforms that keep our community organized and running smoothly. Many of us never see the hard work he puts in behind the scenes, but Timothy is always there providing dependable support to CaRCC group leads and members.
Timothy’s support of CaRCC goes way back:
Timothy is a longtime research computing and data (RCD) community member who became involved with CaRCC back when he was Director of Research Computing at the University of Missouri, starting in 2014. Prior to CaRCC, he was involved with Campus Champions, and when the CaRCC People Network was launched, Timothy was one of its original active participants. He did that for a long time as a “third job”. Then, in 2020, during the pandemic, Timothy joined Internet2.
He’s a national RCD leader and community builder:
Timothy has been one of our longtime leaders of the CaRCC Student and Staff interest groups and has helped lead their recent transition to becoming a combined interest group. He is a co-lead of the AI Facilitation Materials Working group. He has authored and presented on several papers, some of which have won awards at PEARC and served on the PEARC25 planning committee. Timothy also serves as a co-PI on the NAIRR Pilot communications grant, Empowering RCD Professionals to Broaden Participation in the NAIRR Pilot.
At PEARC ’25 alone, Timothy led workshops, co-presented the Town Hall, and delivered sessions on AI facilitation—all while co-authoring publications advancing RCD practice. One nominator noted, “Timothy carries the very spirit of CaRCC in him—collaboration, community, and everything research computing.”
“Timothy carries the very spirit of CaRCC in him—collaboration, community, and everything research computing.”
– CaRCC Nominating Colleague
Fun facts about Timothy:
- He has been to all the PEARC conferences.
- When he’s not championing RCD professionals, he lives in Columbia, MO, with his wife, two kids and his (Zoom-meeting famous) cat, Luna.
- What keeps Tim sane? Mountain biking! He just did a two-day ride in Missouri with his cycling group!
A huge, well-deserved congrats to Timothy on being the first recipient of this new annual award!