About me

My claims to fame: I have three passports, and I once assisted in a WW2 bomb disposal. I’m now happily settled in the UK with full British citizenship. Most recently I’ve had a mix of community-oriented, academic, technical project management and developer roles. In my spare time you’ll probably find me outdoors on my bike or with my nose buried in a book.

Skills & Competencies

Community

Community, technical, and project leadership at various different scales, ranging from co-founding and running the Open Life Science (https://openlifesci.org/) open training program for researchers, hosting collaborative community calls, running and developing training workshops, managing open source issues and pull requests via Hacktoberfest and First-Timers-Only, managing intern programs such as Google Summer of Code and Outreachy, organising conferences (FOSDEM 2022 Open Research track MozFest 2018 Openness space wrangler, BOSC 2019 and 2020 organising committee). Open Source and Git training for newbies.

Writing

Strategic level: Grant and business proposals - over £600,000 GBP brought in, in the last two years in co-authored grants. Hands-on: Papers and research deliverables, technical documentation. Sponsorship requests. Community outreach & blogging, particularly when open source oriented.

Technical

Javascript (and popular libraries such as React, Angular, jQuery), Clojure/ClojureScript, HTML5 and CSS3, Java, Tomcat, R, Python, PostgreSQL, Git, Continuous integration, testing. UX/UI design and testing. Managing public releases and communities of Open Source projects. GitHub profile: https://github.com/yochannah

Recent Experience

Open Life Science - co-founder and Executive director

July 2019 - founded. Feb 2022 - ongoing as Executive Director
Open Life Science is a training and mentoring organisation dedicated to advancing equitable open science by training and mentoring open science ambassadors. We run 16-week programs teaching participants about the basics of open science tooling and community building. Participants come from varied backgrounds including research software, hardware, wet lab, social sciences, anthropology and archaeology, and more. Our community currently has over 400 participants, mentors, and open science experts, and has trained 147 program participants to date, and as of August 2022 we’re running our 6th iteration of training.

Recent Funding

Wellcome Trust - Open Source Technology Lead, Data For Science and Health

August 2020 - Jan 2022
Management role leading open source and research software engineering related initiatives in the Data for Science and Health team. This role requires a combination of stakeholder management, internal and external speaking, and finding suitable candidates for technology-related grant awards and contracts that advance Wellcome’s mission. Communicating the strategic importance of technical subjects to non-technical researchers and grantmakers was a significant part of this.

Achievements include

University of Cambridge - Software Engineer and Community Manager

July 2015 - July 2020
InterMine http://intermine.org/ is based at the Department of Genetics in Cambridge. When I joined, my focus was on developing InterMine’s new Clojure/ClojureScript-based user interface, BlueGenes http://bluegenes.apps.intermine.org/. My activities ranged from early requirements gathering and mockups to user testing, development, and release. Over time, I picked up a more community-management oriented role, running community calls, encouraging community open source contributions, designing and delivering training workshops, and maintaining social media streams (Twitter: @intermineorg) and the InterMine blog https://intermineorg.wordpress.com/. I lead InterMine’s participation in Google Summer of Code (2017, 2018, and 2019) as an organisation administrator and mentor.

Achievements include

CapitalOne - Senior Associate Software Engineer

(August 2014 - July 2015)
As a software engineer at CapitalOne I was part of an Agile team responsible for creating content and functionality updates to our high-traffic website. Typical duties included creating high-quality reusable module-pattern Javascript to enable enhanced interactive functionalities for credit card applicants.

Project Lead and Developer - K-Now

(Jan 2013 - July 2014)
As Project Lead, I was responsible for client and partner liaison, in both commercial projects and multimillion Euro EU research projects. I regularly represented K-Now in conferences, exhibitions, and meetings both in the UK and abroad. I also contributed to research project deliverables, created business proposals for potential clients, and oversaw technical exercises.

Achievements include

My responsibilities included design and development of K-Now’s data visualisation platform, primarily from the front end using Javascript and popular libraries, including jQuery, Underscore, D3.js and Highcharts. This platform was successfully used in multiple commercial endeavours. I also enjoyed working as an Android developer, learning standard Android design patterns and methodologies. Several of the applications I worked on were available on the Google Play store.

Front End Web Manager - MattressOnline.co.uk

(Jan 2011 - Dec 2012)
Front-end web manager: I have experience dealing with all aspects of the front end of a growing web company, from on-page SEO, to graphical content creation, analytics reporting and copywriting. While I inherited the incumbent MattressOnline site, I was able to design and implement the front ends of several specialist satellite sites to target specific brands. The majority of my work was carried out in PHP, JavaScript, XML, and Photoshop. The role was design-heavy, and though slightly dated, some of my graphical work can be found here: https://www.behance.net/yoyehudi/
Achievement: Within a year of my joining MattressOnline, web turnover had doubled - I believe a large part of this was down to my conscientious and dedicated front-end management.

2nd Line Technical Analyst - Fujitsu & Computacenter

(Mar 07 - Dec 10)
As a second-line analyst for HBOS (now part of Lloyds Banking Group), my role revolved around resolving IT faults for users swiftly and efficiently. When possible I talked the users through a resolution on the phone, or remotely accessed their PC. If necessary, I’d dispatch an engineer with appropriate hardware replacements parts. I have particular experience with HP PCs, laptops, and laser printers. My role required strong organisational and documentation skills and familiarity/adherence with existing procedures.

Professional Activities

Events, Talks and Workshops

Education and Qualifications

Personal Interests

My hobbies include crafts, running, cycling, and open source software. I’ve participated in the RBS Caledonian Challenge (42 miles on foot in one night) for charity, completed a solo Coast to Coast cycle ride, and ridden 105 miles overnight for the British Heart Foundation. I’m also an active member of the StackExchange community.

This CV is available in markdown with clickable links at yochannah.github.io/cv/