About Our Team

Executive Team

Parker Antin
PI and Project Director, University of Arizona | pba@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Parker Antin is Project Director, PI, and Site Lead for CyVerse and is based at the University of Arizona. Dr. Antin, a professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the College of Medicine and an Associate Dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, joined CyVerse in 2015 to help reach non-plant communities. He is a national authority in the areas of developmental biology and genomics who has taught and conducted research at the University of Arizona since 1992. His research identifying how genes are used during embryo development in an animal like the chicken allows scientists to better understand how congenital disabilities occur in humans. As a Board member since 2009 and now President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), Dr. Antin has worked extensively in Washington to advocate for science funding. He has become well-versed in the federal science budget appropriations process and in regulatory issues.

Eric Lyons
Co-PI and UArizona Science Lead, University of Arizona | ericlyons@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Eric Lyons is assistant professor of Plant Biology at the University of Arizona. Prior to obtaining his PhD in plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley, he worked for six years as a computational biologist and programmer in several industry settings including pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and software companies. He has expertise in large project management and currently serves as a science team lead for CyVerse. His research is in bioinformatics and comparative genomics, and he is the founder of CoGe, a premier platform for comparative genomics, which now operates on the CyVerse CI under its Powered by CyVerse program.

Nirav Merchant
Co-PI and UArizona Cyberinfrastructure Lead, University of Arizona | nirav@email.arizona.edu

Mr. Nirav Merchant is the director of the Data Science Institute at the University of Arizona, whose mission is to connect and align UArizona researchers with institutional expertise, computational resources and infrastructure to enable investigators to ask and solve more complex questions and achieve outcomes not easily attainable as solo researchers or within purely disciplinary teams. He oversees the comprehensive computational cyberinfrastructure for biomedical research, supporting diverse projects ranging from large-scale clinical NGS analytics platforms to mobile health (mHealth) interventions. With over 25 years of experience at the University of Arizona as a technology strategist and architect for multi-institutional projects involving scalable data analytics, Nirav directs CyVerse's CI strategy and also co-teaches an interdisciplinary course in Applied Cyberinfrastructure Concepts, designed with CyVerse, XSEDE, and FutureGrid infrastructure.

David Micklos
Co-PI and EOT Lead, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | micklos@cshl.edu

Mr. David Micklos is founder and Executive Director of the DNA
Learning Center (DNALC) at CSHL. He is the CyVerse Education,
 Outreach, and Training (EOT) Faculty Advisor and collaborates with
 CyVerse senior management and outside advisors to develop EOT
 strategy and long-term plans. Mr. Micklos collaborates with NSF-, 
NIH-, and HHMI-supported programs to integrate CyVerse into 
education programs at the national level. He is PI of several major
 projects that use CyVerse cyberinfrastructure: an NSF Course,
 Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) grant to introduce
 RNA-Seq analysis into undergraduate education, an NSF Advanced
 Technological Education (ATE) grant to train community college faculty in DNA sequence and barcode analysis, an NSF Research Collaboration Network (RCN) to stimulate course-based undergraduate research (CURE), an NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) for high school student barcode projects exploring the ecology of Long Island, and a Pinkerton Foundation grant to support research mentorships in DNA barcoding for underrepresented minorities in New York City high schools.

Matthew Vaughn
Co-PI and UT Cyberinfrastructure Lead, University of Texas at Austin | vaughn@tacc.utexas.edu

Dr. Matthew Vaughn is Director of Life Sciences Computing at TACC and is the CI Lead for CyVerse. He is a computational biologist with research interests in plant epigenetic regulation of gene expression and computational expertise in bioinformatics and high performance computing. He is co-designer of CyVerse’s TAPIS Science API platform and co-PI of the Arabidopsis Information Portal project, which leverages CyVerse resources for a new, modular database for the Arabidopsis community. Dr. Vaughn is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the University of Texas San Antonio Cancer Bioinformatics Initiative and has developed computational biomedicine engagement and support strategies for the University of Texas system.

Staff

Adrian Bao
Student Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona |

Matt Bomhoff
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | mbomhoff@cyverse.org

Amanda Cooksey
Science Informatician, University of Arizona | amcooksey@cyverse.org

Sean Davey
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | sdavey@email.arizona.edu

Tony Edgin
Senior Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | tedgin@cyverse.org

Andy Edmonds
Senior Systems Administrator, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | aedmonds@cyverse.org

John Fonner
Research Associate, Life Sciences Computing, TACC, UT Austin | jfonner@tacc.utexas.edu

Jeremy Frady
Systems Administrator, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | jeremyfrady@cyverse.org

Flynn Gaur
Student Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona |

Natalie Henriques
Project Manager, TACC, UT Austin | natalie@tacc.utexas.edu

Tina Lee
User Engagement Officer, University of Arizona | tinal@cyverse.org

TJ Lippincott
Student Intern, Science Team, University of Arizona |

Shelley Littin
Coordinator, Marketing & Communications, University of Arizona | littin@cyverse.org

Ian McEwen
Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | mian@cyverse.org

Calvin McLean
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | calvinmclean@cyverse.org

Vibhor Mehta
Student Developer, University of Arizona |

Jessmer John Palanca
Student Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona |

Nancy Purcell
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | nancyp@cyverse.org

Ashley Ramsey
Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | aramsey@cyverse.org

Sarah Roberts
Senior Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | sarahr@cyverse.org

Paul Sarando
Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | psarando@cyverse.org

William Simpson
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | wsimpson@cyverse.org

Edwin Skidmore
Director, Infrastructure, University of Arizona | edwin@cyverse.org

Jawon Song
Research Associate, Life Sciences Computing, TACC, UT Austin | jawon@tacc.utexas.edu

Mary Margaret Sprinkle
Assistant Director of Finance & Management, University of Arizona | marys@cyverse.org

Sriram Srinivasan
Software Engineer Lead, Core Software, University of Arizona | sriram@cyverse.org

Tyson Swetnam
Science Informatician, University of Arizona | tswetnam@cyverse.org

Jordan Thompson
Software Engineer, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona | jordant@cyverse.org

Reetu Tuteja
Science Informatician, University of Arizona | reetu@cyverse.org

Ariel Villasenor
Undergraduate Student, Cloud Native Services, University of Arizona |

Mariah Wall
User Interface and Application Developer, University of Arizona | mgwall@cyverse.org

Jason Williams
Training Lead, DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | williams@cshl.edu

John Wregglesworth
Software Engineer, Core Software, University of Arizona | wregglej@cyverse.org