About Me
I am a scientist and product-focused engineering leader with over two decades of experience architecting, building, and operating reliable software systems for research, healthcare, and business -- in large companies (IBM, Genentech), zero-to-one startups (Invitae, MyOme), and open source collaborations (biocommons.org, GA4GH). I have been a CTO, a founder and executive director of academic/industry collaboration, and I have primary and senior authorship of international standards for representing biological sequence variation. I have direct experience in contract negotiation and partnership management. I am currently available for full-time employment or contracting in scientific software engineering or civic causes. I thrive in startup environments where every day is an opportunity to create enduring value.
I have a knack for helping teams articulate mission and strategy messages while staying focused on incremental delivery of tangible value. I enjoy collaborating with smart people to solve complex problems and leading teams that create products that matter. I think strategically and have a bias toward action, and am comfortable building scrappy solutions for quick answers and resilient systems for mission-critical operations. As a startup veteran, I expect to build value within constrained resources.
Education
I earned a BA in molecular biology from UC San Diego and worked on early mapping of chromosome 11 for the nascent Human Genome Project at the Salk Institute. I then completed a dual PhD/MS in molecular biophysics and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by post-doctoral work at the IBM Watson Research Center. This education was enabled by public funding through the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, for which I am very grateful.
Professional Experience
This section contains only my career highlights; see my Curriculum Vitae (PDF) for a complete employment history.
As CTO at MyOme (2020-2025), I translated company mission and strategy into actionable roadmaps. I built the engineering team, managed the initial clinical operations team that received our first ~50 clinical samples, hired our first project managers, and oversaw compliance efforts as our first privacy and security officer. I was the system architect of our system for clinical genetics test ordering, processing, and interpretation, and I implemented significant portions of early versions of it. I contributed to product vision and managed several partner relationships as the company evolved. I am particularly proud of the team that we hired while we designed and built a nimble, solid, and secure platform that adapted as the company sought product-market fit while still providing a foundation for high volume, CAP/CLIA/HIPAA compliance, and extremely high marks for penetration testing and architectural reviews by third parties.
At Invitae (2010-2017), I began as an unpaid scientific consultant and reference to venture capital firms during Invitae's Series A fundraising. I was among the initial team of tremendously talented and focused individuals who developed the laboratory methods and systems that proved the clinical and financial effectiveness of next generation sequencing for clinical genetics. We delivered reports to over six million patients and their clinicians before the company was acquired by LabCorp. I architected and directed the implementation of our first interpretation pipeline, and I designed of our second gene panel. I also held primary responsibility for our AWS cloud environment. I led the team that built our clinical-grade system that enabled genome interpretation. I was actively involved in most of our early hiring within and outside engineering as the company scaled to roughly 750 employees during my tenure. It was a privilege to work with this team and see Invitae grow from seed stage to a successful company with profound clinical impact.
At Genentech (2001-2009), I started as an individual contributor scientist, built a small team working on protein structure prediction, and eventually managed computing for Research. My research program focused on using protein structure prediction to discover novel therapeutic targets in the (then) draft human genome. This work led to the development of Unison, the protein annotation system that was used by research, development, and legal teams for over a decade to discover and analyze protein sequences. Unison integrated and continuously updated, indexed, and tracked provenance of feature predictions from over 60 sources and methods across all known human and non-human proteins and it contributed to numerous drug target development programs. I was promoted to manage Research Computing and became responsible for the architecture, budget, operations, and coordination of computing services that served ~1300 staff in Genentech Research. In that role, I routinely met with directors of computing-intensive departments to plan spending (combined capital + operational budget of $30-35M) and to coordinate the work of the more than 20 IT and application personnel. I negotiated significant contracts for software and computing services used by Research.
I am the founder and executive director of biocommons.org where I coordinate the efforts of an international team of academic and industry professionals. For over ten years, this community has built and maintained pre-competitive open source resources for genome interpretation that are trusted by clinical genetics companies and academic researchers around the globe. The biocommons steering committee includes representatives from academia and industry.
I have joined and helped build open and academic efforts to promote standards. I am the primary author of the most recent update to the HGVS Nomenclature, an internationally-recognized standard for the description of DNA, RNA, and protein sequence variants. I founded and chaired the Variation Representation effort at the Alliance for Genomics and Health, and I am the primary architect of the Variation Representation Specification and the senior author of the resulting manuscript.
I have expertise with Linux, Python, PostgreSQL, AWS, GCP, CI/CD, data engineering, security, and devops. I am a practiced, thoughtful, and skeptical user of AI throughout product development, including brainstorming, competitive analyses, feature prioritization, product roadmapping, system architecture, implementation planning, and frontend and backend implementation.
Civic Engagement
Over the last decade, I have become increasingly determined to use my time, skills, and experience to improve political representation in the United States. During a year-long sabbatical (Sep 2025-Aug 2026), I have devoted much of this time to volunteering for and contracting with organizations that seek to improve political discourse and engagement.
In 2017, I began volunteering with States Win (then known as Sister District), including extensive canvassing in Arizona, co-organizing the San Francisco chapter's canvassing effort in 2019, and leading a Virginia canvassing delegation that led to the VA trifecta. In 2020, I was a core member of the small, passionate, and all-volunteer team that built landslide2020.org, a relational organizing platform to promote accountability among friends. In 2026, I helped modernize Indivisible SF's website. I also built No Kings Countdown to motivate people leading up to No Kings 3 on March 28, 2026. I am currently working on Civic Center, a personal passion project to help people identify their political and social values, and to use this awareness to increase their civic engagement in elections, representative relationships, and other forms of political action. In the course of building these tools, I have used APIs and services from Alloy, Ballotpedia, Google's Civic Information, Congress.gov, and Vote.org.
Personal Life
I live in San Francisco with my wife, Hanna Hart, where we raised three (now adult) children. I play ultimate regularly in pickup, leagues, and club teams. I have coached youth ultimate through Ultimate Impact for eight years. I sail regularly on San Francisco Bay, including lighthearted racing through the South Beach Yacht Club. We enjoy traveling, scuba diving, good food, dinner parties, and of course our dogs, Chewie and Wilbur.
