INCF Secretariat

Brief biography:

Sean Hill received his B.A. in Computational Neuroscience from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. After a period spent working in the biotechnology industry, where he supervised a team of programmers working on distributed databases, he then returned to academia to study for a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Here he investigated the computational role of the auditory thalamocortical circuitry in the rat, research which involved multi-unit recordings and large-scale neuronal simulations.

After receiving his Ph.D. degree, Sean Hill held postdoctoral positions at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. During this time he developed the first large-scale model of the cat visual thalamocortical system that replicates neural activity during wakefulness and sleep.

In 2006, Sean Hill was recruited by IBM to serve as the Project Manager for Computational Neuroscience in the Blue Brain Project, responsible for co-leading a team of 35 researchers dedicated to constructing a data-driven large-scale model of brain circuitry. In this capacity, he coordinated efforts to integrate gene expression, morphology and electrophysiology data into modeling, simulation, visualization and analysis workflows on a variety of high performance computing platforms. He has also supervised and led research efforts exploring the principles underlying the structure and dynamics of neocortical microcircuitry.

From January 2011 onward, Sean Hill holds the position of INCF Executive Director. 

Job responsibilities:

• Responsible for INCF Secretariat IT infrastructure.
• Interface with IT contractors and oversight of internal IT maintenance.
• Assist in technical development of programs.

Brief biography:
Dr. Ellisman is recognized worldwide as an expert in the development and application of network and information technologies to advance the biological sciences.  His research has furthered investigation into the basic molecular and cellular mechanisms of the nervous system, and has developed new in microscopy and computational biology.

In 2001, Ellisman launched the development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) linking major neuroimaging research centers throughout the U.S.  BIRN has been a model for multi-disciplinary, multi-investigator collaborations and data-sharing. In 1996, he founded the Center for Research in Biological Systems (CRBS), an organized research unit at the University of California, San Diego. CRBS facilitates an interdisciplinary infrastructure in which people from biology, medicine, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and physics can work with those from computer science and information technologies. In 1992, Ellisman’s research team introduced the idea of telemicroscopy and demonstrated network-enabled, remote use and sharing of the world’s most powerful electron microscopes, including the 3MeV facility in Osaka, Japan. In 1988, Ellisman established the NIH National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR), an internationally acclaimed technology development center and a widely used research resource that develops new technologies and provides researchers with access to many of the most advanced imaging technologies. 

Job responsibilities:

• Manage the INCF initiative for "Roles of Neuroinformatics in the process of building, evaluating and using genetic animal models for brain diseases"
• Manage the INCF Neuroinformatics Congress
  
• Manage INCF Nodes interaction
• Contribute to the INCF Portal contents
• Provide domain expertise and community connection related to INCF products and services

Brief biography:
Pontus Holm started as Program Officer at the INCF Secretariat in August 2007. He manages programs and projects operated by the INCF, including follow-up with external contractors and INCF National Nodes. Dr. Holm has a Ph.D. in molecular neurobiology from Karolinska Institutet. He has been an EMBO post-doctoral fellow at the GSF Institute of Stem Cell Research, Munich, and post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute. He also has experience as Project Leader at the Lund Stem Cell Center.

Job responsibilities:

• Manage the INCF Programs on Digital Brain Atlasing, Ontologies of Neural Structures and Standards for Datasharing.
• Manage contracts awarded by INCF in relation to these programs.
  
• Support the development of new programs through their definition and start-up phase.
• Maintain the relevant INCF Program web pages.
• INCF Secretariat contact for the French, UK and USA nodes.

Brief biography:
Linda Lanyon joined the INCF Secretariat as Program Officer in November 2011. Her background includes theoretical and empirical neuroscience research, computing and informatics.

She obtained a PhD in computational neuroscience from University of Plymouth, UK. Her computational modeling work involves simulating cortical neuronal responses and network dynamics that generate healthy and pathological visual behaviours in humans and monkeys. Her postdoctoral fellowship was spent at The University of British Columbia, Canada, where she extended her research into the empirical realm using MRI neuroimaging, specifically diffusion tensor imaging, to understand the networks involved in human visual perception in health and disease.

During her previous career and BSc(Hons) degree in computing and informatics, Dr Lanyon worked in the UK Government leading software development teams and being involved in two major e-Government initiatives and task forces.

Dr Lanyon held the voluntary position of Director of the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology during 2008-2011.

Job responsibilities:

• Coordinate our web design and development projects
• Responsible for information architecture and interaction design to ensure that provided web services meet end-user needs
• Facilitate and support the development, maintenance, and implementation of the INCF graphical profile

Brief biography:
Ylva Lillberg joined the INCF as a Usability and Requirements Analyst on the development team in April 2007. Mrs. Lillberg has an M.Sc. from the Royal Institute of Technology, specializing in medical engineering. Her professional experience includes project management and development in the life sciences industry, where she has worked with usability and design issues as well as research in product requirements and pre-development feasibility studies.

Job responsibilities:

• Support INCF Secretariat management functions by providing neuroinformatics domain and community knowledge. Advise INCF Program Officers.
• Provide expert technical advice and support in the planning, development and operations of programs and projects
• Connect to the INCF National Nodes as well as to the neuroinformatics community in general to foster the development of partnerships and collaborations
• For special products and service projects, provide leadership and innovation, and contribute to system development and maintenance

Brief biography:
Raphael Ritz joined the INCF as Scientific Officer in December 2006. In close collaboration with the Executive Director and Executive Advisor, he is responsible for establishing a platform for research-oriented services for the neuroinformatics and broader neuroscience research communities worldwide. Dr. Ritz is a physicist by training and has experience in computational neuroscience (Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego), advanced data analysis techniques, and web portal development (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin). He is also a member of the framework team of the Plone Foundation.