Name: Hilmar Lapp

Position: Assistant Director for Informatics

Research Description:

My research interests are in reusable and interoperable software and data, computable semantics, large-scale data integration, and building sustainable cyberinfrastructure. A biologist by training, I have also been programming for more than two decades, in areas ranging from commercial applications to real-time data acquisition to bioinformatics data integration and standards.

In my role at NESCent, I am involved in many of the Center’s cyberinfrastructure initiatives, and serve as senior personnel in the NSF-funded Phenoscape project (http://phenoscape.org), as well as the Dryad digital repository for data supporting scientific publications (http://datadryad.org). I brought the hackathon program and Google Summer of Code participation to the Center. At GNF in San Diego, CA, I built SymAtlas, one of the first decidedly gene-centric databases integrating various genome annotation sources with gene function data.

I have also been been a long-time advocate of open-source and open development of software. Software I write is free for everyone to reuse, modify, and redistribute.

Contact Information

Address:
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent)
Durham, North Carolina
USA

Email: hlapp@nescent.org
Web Page: http://phenoscape.org/wiki/User:Hlapp