Intro:
Blake is a Senior Scientific Consultant at BioTeam. He has journeyed from ecological field research, plant biotechnology and bioinformatics, ultimately facilitating research on advanced cyberinfrastructure (HPC, cloud, science gateways). He enjoys being a data science sherpa: researchers and leadership teams point to what mountain they want to climb, logistics are worked out from there.
Focus Areas:
- HPC Scientific Facilitation
- Education and Training
- Organizational Assessments
- Data Management
- HPC and OpenStack Cloud Scientific Facilitation
- Data Science Facilitation
Tools:
- OpenStack
- R, Python
- Linux
- Singularity, Docker
- Git/Hub
Scientific Areas:
- Ecology
- Molecular Biology
- Comparative and Functional Genomics
- Precision Agriculture
Background
Blake holds a B.S. in Ecology and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Georgia, a Master of Plant Sciences, and Ph.D. in Plants, Soils, and Insects from the University of Tennessee. Blake was a Science Analyst at CyVerse, the Assistant Director of Research Computing for the University of Arizona, and the Research Computing Data Science Manager for the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has supported and managed central HPC and cloud analysis environments for researchers (over 100 different departments at both universities), designed data management policies and environments for scientists, students, and faculty. Blake is active in multiple consortia, such as the Academic Data Science Alliance, US Research Software Engineers Association, and the NSF Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS).
Personal Interests:
I’m an explorer at heart which means I spend whatever time I can ‘out in the gray.’ I’m an avid traveler, love sharing somewhat embellished stories with fellow travelers, been SCUBA diving for 19 years, enjoy shooting pool, and riding dual sport motorcycles.
When I cannot be out there exploring, I like playing RPG and adventure video games or spending time walking around markets. I grew up in the food service industry for the first half of my life and was an agricultural ecologist. I really enjoy wild harvesting ingredients (let’s me practice my mycology, fly fishing/spearfishing, botany skills!), zymurgy, and fixing meals.
