Intro:
Simon specializes in building software that is actually useable by scientists. Formerly an Assistant Professor working in the areas of Genomics and Biotechnology, he joined BioTeam in 2013. Since then, he has continued his focus on harnessing the cloud to build software tools for scientists while also embracing the power of DevOps to create the dynamic computing architectures needed for modern informatics.
Focus Areas:
- Cloud
- Web Development
- Informatics
- DevOps
- Organizational Assessments
- Strategic Planning
- UX
Tools:
- Amazon Web Services
- AWS Cloud Formation
- Google Cloud Platform
- Google Compute Engine, Google BigQuery
- Heroku, New Relic
- Chef, Ansible
- Docker
- Ruby on Rails, Golang, JavaScript
- Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment
Scientific Areas:
- Biochemistry
- Clinical and Translational Science
- Genome Databases
- Genomics
- Model Organisms
- Ontologies
- Proteomics
Background
Simon has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Nottingham in the UK and worked on Ubiquitin and related proteins for his postdoctoral work at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. His growing interest in software development led him into bioinformatics and he joined Prof. Howard Jacob’s group at the Medical College developing software for genomic mapping projects and became a faculty member in 2001. His research focused around genomics and genome databases. He was a principle investigator on a number of prominent bioinformatic projects—the Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD), the Rat Genome Database, the Gene Ontology Consortium, the National Center for Biomedical Ontology—along with directing the bioinformatics components for the MCW NHLBI National Proteomics Center and the MCW Center of Excellence in Genomics Science. His research group focused on promoting emerging software development tools such as Ruby on Rails and cloud computing and his group published the first example of a cloud-based analysis platform for proteomics in 2009. For three years prior to leaving MCW in 2011, he was the Biomedical Informatics Key Function Director for the MCW’s CTSA center, the South Eastern Wisconsin Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
Personal Interests:
Simon maintains a popular site for Ham Radio education, an iPhone/iPad app for morse code practice, has a rather underused pilot license and tries to spend as much time as possible on the slopes, trails, and rivers of Colorado.
