Kevin Silverstein
Kevin Silverstein is Scientific Lead for the Research Informatics Solutions (RIS) group at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI). He has spent decades performing large-scale bioinformatics analyses involving cutting-edge high-throughput data from bacteria, fungi, plants, mammals and complex communities. He has performed detailed investigations of plant-microbe systems in continued research since 2001. Additionally, in 2010-2012, he led an effort to identify mutations in clinical patients with Fairview Hospital which has been expanded in partnership with MSI and continues to be used today. The knowledge gained from handling protected patient data has been brought over to GEMS to protect farmer and corporate data. Kevin has authored over 75 research articles.
Jill Wegrzyn
Jill Wegrzyn is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut and the Director of the Computational Biology Core within the Institute for Systems Genomics. Her work focuses on computational analysis and software development for non-model plant species. She develops approaches for genome assembly, structural gene annotation, transcriptome assembly, and conserved element identification. Jill also leads the TreeGenes Database, which represents an integrated genomic and phenomic community resource for forest health and breeding. Integration with other repositories and analytic frameworks has enabled her team to develop technologies to connect genotype, phenotype, and environmental data for georeferenced trees. She applies these tools to current forest health challenges to understand the genetic basis for adaptation to both biotic and abiotic threats.
Website: http://plantcompgenomics.com/
Google Scholar: Jill Wegrzyn - Google Scholar
Brian King
Brian King heads up the Digital and Data Innovation Accelerator for the global consortium of agricultural research institutes CGIAR. Previously he led the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, a global program centered on open science infrastructure; partnerships and technical communities of practice; and sourcing, fostering, culling, and scaling transformative digital agrifood innovations. He has designed and led programs leveraging successive waves of digital technologies for the social and economic transformations they can effect, with focus areas including early internet networks and policies, mobile telephony, inclusive mobile financial services, and governance of critical backbone infrastructure. Brian has led development of digital strategies for an array of public, private, and non-profit clients. He is a former agriculture extensionist and a California rice farmer.