Sam Burns

Director of Digital Strategy and Communications at UT Austin School of Information. Web accessibility advocate and technology mentor.

Samuel A. Burns

sburns@ischool.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas

Education

Master of Science in Information Studies (MSIS)

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Information Studies
2002 - 2004 | GPA: 4.0

During this program, broadened technical skills becoming proficient in unix/linux, bash, perl, PHP, SQL, Python, Ruby

Bachelor of Science

Florida State University
History & Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
1992 - 1996 | cum laude

Professional Experience

Director of Information Technology

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Austin, Texas | 2024-08 - Present

  • Advise the Dean on setting IT policy and strategy for the School.

  • Direct compliance with university security, accessibility, acceptable use, and data integrity policies.

  • Direct the development, design, maintenance, and provisioning of departmental server, network, web and communications, and end-user support systems.

  • Research and present new technologies or industry trends that advance new solutions or alternative directions to previously defined business goals.

  • Serve on campus IT committees, School committees, and other strategic planning groups and initiatives as requested.

Senior IT Manager

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Austin, Texas | 2015-01-01 - 2024-08

  • Lead IT operations and service portfolio for a small, research-intensive academic unit.

  • Align staffing, services, procurement, and time management to maximize direct support of research and teaching initiatives.

  • Improve and refine customer service through proactive engagement (teaching, consulting, outreach, and clear communications), not just incident response.

  • Build operational resilience through cross-training and documentation.

Technologies: Microsoft 365, ServiceNow, VMware, UT Data Center, Box, AWS

Communications Coordinator

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Austin, Texas | 2011-09-01 - 2014-12-31

  • Lead web presence, digital communications, and publishing workflows.

  • Evaluate and improve web services using usability practices, analytics, and feedback loops.

  • Partner with internal stakeholders to strengthen the School’s digital presence and messaging.

Technologies: Drupal, WordPress, PHP, MySQL, HTML5, JavaScript, Google Analytics

Systems Administrator (HR: Network Analyst)

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Austin, Texas | 2007-05-07 - 2011-09-01

  • Operate and support self-hosted services (mail, directory/identity, web) and research/teaching infrastructure.

  • Provide consulting and enablement for faculty, staff, and students through tutorials, workshops, and one-on-one collaboration.

  • Design and maintain the Drupal-based platform supporting the School’s long-running online course, Information in Cyberspace.

Technologies: Linux, Apache, LDAP, VMware/vSphere, Drupal, Jabber/XMPP

Graduate appointments (Teaching/Research/Instruction)

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
Austin, Texas | 2003-07-16 - 2007-05-07

  • Teaching support, course operations, instructional technology, and guest webcasts.

  • Research support in usability/HCI and early information architecture work.

Business Planner

Texas Department of Insurance
Austin, Texas | 2000 - 2003

  • Lead state-mandated project initiatives for Financial, Consumer Protection and executive staff divisions of the TDI

  • Managed records and information systems projects with the technology services division of the TDI

  • Wrote business planning reports and managed projects in accordance with Business Planning and Redesign requirements of the TDI

  • Administered Business Planning and Redesign requirements of the TDI

Technologies: Project management, Records management systems

Records Management Consultant

Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Austin, Texas | 1998 - 2000

  • Trained state and local government staff and officials on records management laws and practices

  • Reviewed and authorized state and local records retention schedules

  • Developed records retention policies for the state and local government agencies

Technologies: Records management systems

Archivist

Florida Bureau of Archives and Records Management, Florida Department of State
Florida | 1996 - 1998

  • Performed references services for researchers of the Florida State Library

  • Managed the genealogical library holdings of the Florida State Library

  • Trained state and local government staff and officials on records management and archives statutes

Technologies: Archival systems

Student Internship (Reference Archivist)

Florida Bureau of Archives and Records Management, Florida Department of State
Florida | 1995 - 1996

  • Performed reference services for researchers of the Florida State Archives

  • Participated in one of the earliest and largest digitization efforts of archival photographic images

Technologies: Digital imaging, Archival systems

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Publications

  1. Geisler, G. and Burns, Sam (2008). Tagging Video: Conventions and Strategies of the YouTube Community. Bulletin of IEEE Technical Committee on Digital Libraries (TCDL), 4. DOI:

Conference Proceedings

  1. Geisler, Gary and Burns, Sam (2007). Tagging video: Conventions and strategies of the YouTube community. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 480. DOI: 10.1145/1255175.1255279

  2. Bias, R.G., Williams, J.P., Chung, D., and Burns, S.A. (2005). An experimental study of the effects of Microsoft’s Clear Type® on programmer productivity. In Annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

  3. Chang, Leggett, Furuta, Kerne, Williams, Burns & Bias (2004). Collection Understanding. In ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries.

Presentations

Conference Presentations

  • How do we perform usability testing when the tasks are so novel that users don´t even know they want to perform them?. Usability Professionals Association Conference, 2004. (with J.P. Williams)

Guest Lectures

  • INF 312: Various information and computer science topics. UT Austin, 2005-2006.

Skills

Technical Skills

Professional Interests

Web accessibility • User experience design • Information architecture • Open source software • Technology education

References

Available upon request.

Last updated: 2026-02-09