About Phoenix Bioinformatics

Connie Ng
Chief Financial Officer

Connie is the Chief Financial Officer at Phoenix Bioinformatics, where she has served since 2018. She brings more than 25 years of experience in Accounting, Finance, and Human Resources across the high-tech, software, and service industries. Connie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance, with a minor in Economics, from the University of Wisconsin and is recognized for her strong financial leadership, operational expertise, and people-focused approach to business management.

Alyssa Proia, MS
Bioinformatician

Alyssa is an Air Force veteran and bioinformatician at Phoenix, where she has worked since fall of 2023. Her primary responsibilities center on the TAIR12 genome reannotation project and biocuration efforts with AgBioData’s natural language processing group, including testing various AI platforms. With over 14 years of experience in systems engineering and test and evaluation, she holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MS in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University.

Leonore Reiser, PhD
Principal Biocuration Scientist

Leonore is a Principal Biocuration Scientist at Phoenix Bioinformatics. She was one of the original curators of The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) and has been with Phoenix since 2015. Her primary responsibilities center on data curation for TAIR and she also serves on the AgBioData (www.agbiodata.org) steering committee. Leonore earned her PhD in Plant Biology from UC Berkeley, where she also conducted postdoctoral research in maize genetics.

Swapnil Sawant, MS
Senior Software Engineer

Swapnil joined Phoenix Bioinformatics in 2018 and serves as a Senior Software Engineer. He led TAIR’s migration from a legacy monolith to a modern cloud architecture, built PhyloGenes — an NSF-funded interactive platform for evolutionary biology — and now develops Phoenix’s production AI agent systems. Swap holds a Master’s in Computing from the University of Utah and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS).

Marcela Karey Tello-Ruiz, PhD
Program Manager

Marcela is AgBioData’s Program Manager. Her interdisciplinary background spans medical and population genetics, comparative plant genomics, biocuration, and science communication. She holds a Biochemical Engineering degree from Tecnológico de Monterrey and a PhD in Genetics from SUNY Stony Brook, with training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Broad Institute, and prior service as AgBioData Steering Committee Member and SGV Working Group Chair.

Josh Young, MS
Executive Director & Board Member

As executive director, Josh is focused on board engagement, community relations, culture, funding, and strategy.. He joined Phoenix in December, 2021. Josh found a passion for improved access to data, better administration, and stronger communities following completion of an undergraduate degree in biology and went on to earn graduate degrees in environmental science and public administration. He previously worked on the development and governance of digital research resources in atmospheric science, oceanography, as well as natural resource management.

Christine Orr, MLS
Board Member

Christine Orr is the Senior Director of Business and Community Development at BioOne, where she drives strategic initiatives designed to advance the mission of sustainably maximizing access to research. She has more than three decades of revenue- and communications-focused roles across mission-driven and for-profit organizations including American Institute of Physics, Ringgold, and OSA – the Optical Society. Christine is active in the scholarly publishing community and holds an MLS from Long Island University.

Nicholas Provart, PhD
Board Member

Nicholas Provart, chair of the Department of Cell & Systems Biology at the University of Toronto, leads the Bio-Analytic Resource (BAR) with tools for gene expression analysis, receiving ~4M monthly views. He co-founded the International Arabidopsis Informatics Consortium, presides over the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee, and teaches five bioinformatics MOOCs on Coursera.

Kevin Smith, MLS, JD
Board Member

Kevin Smith Recently retire as the Director of Libraries at Colby College in Maine. He is a lawyer and a librarian, and has spent years teaching librarians and faculty about copyright. For a decade he served as Director of the Office for Copyright and Scholarly Communications at Duke University. In 2016 he became the Dean of Libraries at the University of Kansas, where he also taught Copyright Law in the KU School of Law. He moved to Maine, and Colby, in 2022, where he has continued to teach an undergraduate course about copyright and the music industry. Smith is the author of numerous articles and two books about how copyright law impacts the practice of librarians and university faculty, as well as two MOOCs addressing those topics.

Josh Young, MS
Executive Director & Board Member

Josh found his calling twenty years ago at a research organization that was struggling to access, share, and use data. Josh recognized a need for improved access to data, better administration, and stronger communities and went on to earn graduate degrees in environmental science and public administration in pursuit of these goals. He has worked in atmospheric science, oceanography, as well as natural resource management.