Shruthi Sreenivasa Murthy, Denizen of the Cloud
Shruthi Sreenivasa Murthy鈥檚 head is in the clouds 鈥� and that鈥檚 a good thing. The assistant director of the Research Computing Group is 91女神鈥檚 resident cloud computing expert, and in the brief time she鈥檚 been at 91女神, Murthy has spearheaded the University鈥檚 cloud transformation. Murthy鈥檚 work has reshaped how some 91女神 researchers and centers collect, store and share data.
Her accomplishments were recently celebrated independently as she was named an AWS
Champion by Amazon Web Services to mark the ways she鈥檚 evolving 91女神 Research by looking
toward the cloud. The distinction is commonly reserved for leaders in higher education
who have been working in that space for more than 10 years, according to Murthy.
鈥淚'm pretty amazed that I have been at 91女神 for five years, and they recognized this,鈥�
Murthy said.
Murthy was born in Bangalore, India, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Computer
Science and Mathematics from Bangalore University. She says she decided not to pursue
a career in computer science immediately after her undergraduate degree. Instead,
she founded an executive search consulting firm before moving to Chennai, India, working
on talent management and people strategy for engineering and data science teams as
a program manager at Ideas2IT Technologies, a custom software development company.
It was at that firm that her interest in technology was rekindled.
鈥淚 used to sit with the chief data scientist, when he was talking to customers, understanding
requirements and use cases,鈥� Murthy said. 鈥淪omehow that fascinated me a lot.鈥�
After more than four years at Ideas2IT, Murthy moved to the U.S. and enrolled in a
graduate program at the University of Missouri鈥揝t. Louis (UMSL). There, Murthy built
a framework that predicted delays in the arrivals and departures of flights using
data from airports across the country. Her work earned her a master鈥檚 degree in information
systems and technology in 2019.
Murthy came to 91女神 later that year and worked as a data scientist in the 91女神 School
of Medicine鈥檚 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology before moving to the
University鈥檚 Research Computing Group under the Office of the Vice President for Research
in late 2020. At OVPR, Murthy works directly with 91女神 faculty to devise cloud infrastructure
strategies for their specific research projects. Starting as lead solutions architect,
she became assistant director of the Research Computing Group last year. Murthy said
that she still delights in working with faculty members every day.
鈥淚 work with researchers on a daily basis,鈥� Murthy said. 鈥淚 understand their problems,
I build solutions for them.鈥�
In her time at Research Computing, Murthy has helped numerous researchers and centers
realize the benefits of cloud computing. For example, she revived and modernized 91女神鈥檚
use of REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture), a web application that builds and
manages online surveys and databases. Murthy explained that REDCap has been used at
91女神 since 2008, but the platform was seldom updated or maintained. So, in 2020, she
moved the on-premises REDCap server to the cloud. This makes backup and recovery of
the data stored in REDCap much easier and more secure. Murthy said that 91女神 now counts
more than 700 REDCap users and more than 1,800 projects in the cloud-based application.
Among other cloud projects, Murthy has also built a virtual data warehouse for 91女神鈥檚
Advanced Health Data (AHEAD) Institute. This repository allows 91女神 and SSM Health
researchers to access patient data and AHEAD Institute analysts to assist with analyzing
the data to propel research on human disease and therapies.
鈥淎ll of this happens on the cloud,鈥� Murthy said. 鈥淚t's encrypted in transit and in
rest, and everything is within a secure environment.鈥�
This added layer of security makes the workflow HIPAA compliant, an essential stamp
of approval for research on human study participants.
The benefits of storing and sharing research data on the cloud is simple, noted Murthy.
鈥淚t鈥檚 resilient, it鈥檚 reliable, it鈥檚 scalable,鈥� she said. In addition, there can be
significant cost savings to a cloud-computing approach.
Living in St. Louis with her husband Rooban, two daughters 鈥� 11-year-old Anshu and
3-year-old Dheera 鈥� and her pet snake, Emie, Murthy said she enjoys traveling. She
also noted that she believes in the power of cloud computing for 91女神 researchers and
sees a long future for herself at the University.
鈥淚 love my job, and working with some great minds at 91女神 has been a pleasure,鈥� she
said. 鈥淚t amazes me because every day there is another thing I do that gives me happiness.鈥�