Building capability in the BioCommons team
Just as the breadth of our projects and services are evolving and expanding, so too is the BioCommons team. The past few months have seen people step into new roles and the welcome addition of some new faces.
Dr Jeff Christiansen has taken on the role of Deputy Director, Australian BioCommons. Jeff also continues as Associate Director: Engagements and Operations, so he will interface with key individuals and organisations nationally and internationally to develop and sustain BioCommons programs while working closely with the Operations and Research Community Engagement teams.
Dr Christina Hall has stepped up into the new role of Associate Director: Training and Communications. In recognition of the pivotal role that training plays in BioCommons’ outreach and the increasing importance and complexity of communicating our activities, Christina has been welcomed into the BioCommons leadership team.
Dr Farah Khan has joined BioCommons as Scientific Business Analyst. Hosted by QCIF and based at Melbourne Bioinformatics, Farah will assist the Research Community Engagement team to distil the requirements of omics researchers, find actionable solutions and ultimately support researchers to deliver their best research. Farah has a background in open science, genomics and computational bioinformatics and comes to us with an outstanding reputation for methodical and analytical approaches to documenting global community challenges for bioinformatics workflows.
BioCommons recently welcomed Gavin Graham as the Software and Platforms Service Manager, now hosted by QCIF in Brisbane. Gavin’s role is critical for ensuring a high quality researcher experience for our services such as Galaxy Australia, Apollo and Fgenesh++. He is tasked with ensuring that they are robust, stable, available and sufficiently resourced. Gavin brings 10+ years of experience working in IT management and bioinformatics in the university and private sectors.
Dr Ziad Al Bkhetan is the BioCommons’ new Bioinformatics Application Specialist. Ziad’s background in software engineering and bioinformatics have seen him applying computational methods to machine learning and genomics challenges in previous roles. Based in Melbourne, Ziad will coordinate and support communities to use software and methods and access HPC infrastructure to produce valuable data sets as part of the ABLeS program.
Check out our Team page to see the breadth of skills we now have spread across five Australian states in our Hub team.