About - Phoenix Bioinformatics

History | Staff | Board | Careers | Corporate info

We’re all about helping research succeed

Our highly-regarded and widely-used research services and support efforts set the standard for the global science community. Phoenix experts work with thousands of researchers and institutions around the world to create sustainable tools and resources for the long-term usability of research data and digital research resources. Our team has the subject matter, data management, and business management expertise to ensure that your data and resource needs are well looked after.

Our history & future

Phoenix Bioinformatics is a US-based 501c3 nonprofit founded in 2013 by the staff of TAIR, a curated database of genetic and molecular biology data for the model higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress). After TAIR’s grant funding expired, Phoenix pioneered a new, sustainable funding model for this vital resource. Today, the experts at Phoenix work with thousands of researchers and institutions around the world. Our mission is to help research projects achieve sustainable support using the tools and expertise we developed for TAIR. To learn more about Phoenix Bioinformatics and where we are going in the future, download our 2023-27 Strategic Plan.

Years in business

Team members

Supported resources

0k+

Satisfied customers

Our Staff

Erika Bakker, PhD, Scientific Curator

Erikka is the senior director of gene discovery at Phylos. She earned her BS, MS and PhD in plant sciences from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and completed her post-doc at the University of Chicago. She worked for seven years as a project leader at Dow AgroSciences on gene discovery projects, and as an analyst for the State of Oregon.

Tanya Berardini, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer

Tanya has been with TAIR since 2002 and is one of the founders of Phoenix Bioinformatics. Her work spans data curation in plant biology and paleobiology, community engagement, user support, bridging the communications between scientists and software developers, and developing new project ideas as part of a team. She has a B.S. from the University of the Philippines and a PhD from Boston University.

Xingguo Chen, MS, Staff Software Engineer

Xingguo has experience in full life cycle of web application development. She enjoys building things from ground up and solving any problem she may encounter during the process. Xingguo earned her MS from Stanford University.

Eileen Conroy, Operations Assistant

Eileen brings over ten years of administrative, operations, and human resources experience in tech and biotech to her work at Phoenix. She earned her BS degree from Kent State University in biochemistry and public health.

Amina Khababa, MS, Sales Director

Amina brings 7 years of research experience across both industry and academia. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Physiology from San Francisco State University and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Science with a focus on Stem Cell Science, a joint program between SFSU and Stanford University. After a successful research career, Amina transitioned into sales, combining her scientific expertise with a passion for connecting solutions to customer needs.

Kartik Khosa, BS, Software Engineer

Kartik has earned his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Computer and Information Technology at University of Pennsylvania. He has two years of experience as a solutions engineer in low code industry and is interested in making scalable and simple products.

Brooke Long-Fox, PhD, Data Curation Scientist

Brooke is a paleobiologist with experience in morphology and phylogenetics. She is passionate about data management, accessibility, and analysis. She has a BS from Texas Christian University and an MS and PhD from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Connie Ng, Chief Financial Officer

Connie has over 25 years of Accounting and Finance, Human Resources experience in high-tech, software and service industries . She earned her BS in Finance from the University of Wisconsin.

Trilok Prithvi, MS, Chief Technical Officer

Trilok is an entrepreneur and a seasoned professional with a proven track record in software engineering and product development. He has 18 years of experience in enterprise software, startup, consulting and product design, delivering solutions for Health Care, IT and Services industries. Trilok earned his MS from the University of Utah.

Alyssa Proia, MS, Bioinformatician

Alyssa is an Air Force veteran with over 12 years of experience in systems engineering and test and evaluation. She earned her BS in Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and MS in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University.

Leonore Reiser, PhD, Principal Biocuration Scientist

Leonore was one of the original TAIR curators and laid the groundwork for TAIR’s education and outreach mission. In recent years, she has been working as a science educator and has developed, managed, and evaluated research and educational grant proposals. Leonore has a PhD from Berkeley.

Swapnil Sawant, MS, Software Engineer

Swapnil is currently the lead engineer of TAIR, previously he was leading the development of Phylogenes. He has more than 10 years of experience in the life sciences industry as a software developer. Swapnil earned his Master’s degree from University of Utah, School of Computing. Swapnil is passionate about making user-friendly products and learning new technologies.

Marcela Karey Tello-Ruiz, PhD, Program Manager

Marcela joined the Phoenix Bioinformatics Team as AgBioData’s Program Manager in September of 2025. Her interdisciplinary background spans biocuration of gene structure and metabolic pathways, comparative plant genomics, medical and population genetics, and science communication and community outreach. She has a B.S. in Biochemical Engineering from the Tecnológico de Monterrey and a PhD in Genetics from SUNY Stony Brook. She previously served on the AgBioData Consortium Steering Committee, co-chaired AgBioData’s Standards for Genetic Variation Working Group, and is an active member of the International Society for Biocuration.

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.

Our Board

Debbie Alexander, DPhil, Secretary

Debbie is the Director of Business Development at 23andMe, focusing on innovative healthcare and research partnerships. She has over 12 years of experience in business development roles spanning the nonprofit, academic, Digital Health, and BioPharma sectors (including Scientific Curator at TAIR). Debbie holds a DPhil in Plant Sciences from the University of Oxford and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institute for Science, Stanford University.

Rebecca Bryant, PhD, Board Member

Rebecca is Senior Program Officer with OCLC Research, where she conducts research and develops programming to support 21st century libraries and their parent institutions, particularly as it relates to scholarly communications and research infrastructure. She previously worked as an administrator at the University of Illinois and community director at ORCID.

Jennifer Gibson, Board Member

Jennifer is Executive Director of Dryad, the open data publishing platform and community committed to the sharing and reuse of all research data. Since 2005, she has worked with scientists, funders, publishers, libraries, developers and others to accelerate discovery through transformations in research communication, research culture, and technological infrastructure.

Hilmar Lapp, MS, Board Chair

Hilmar is an Open Research Faculty at Neuromatch, specializing in FAIR and reproducible data, software, and workflows in biostatistics and bioinformatics. With over two decades of experience, he leads and collaborates on major projects in genomics, evolutionary informatics, and serves on the Imageomics Institute leadership team. He’s a co-founder of Data Carpentry and the Dryad digital archive.

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

Careers

Join Phoenix and help us achieve our vision of an integrated, computable, evolving, sustainable body of scientific knowledge available to all researchers everywere.

View openings