MORF - Key Persons


Dr. Joyce Bennett

Job Titles:
  • Business Manager
Dr Joyce Bennett is leading the MORF® business strategy, guiding the transition from an academic tool to a commercial enterprise. Joyce has previous experience as the DETOX project manager and was recently awarded an Enterprise Fellowship from the BBSRC High Value Biorenewables NIBB to connect with the market and develop MORF® for the future.

Dr. Sandy Macdonald

Dr. Sandy Macdonald joined the MORF® team in April 2020 and brings wide ranging bioinformatics experience to MORF®. He works on maintaining and adding features to the databases and websites that are part of the MORF® project, and on analysing and adding new datasets.

Dr. Vicki Springthorpe

Job Titles:
  • Lead Bioinformatician
Dr. Vicki Springthorpe is the lead developer and creator of MORF® combining her skills in coding (including Python, R and JavaScript) with those in omics analysis and database design. She leads feature developent and software demostrations.

Evelyn Smith

Evelyn Smith is a current PhD student who joined MORF® for a 3 month placement. Evelyn has contributed web content and custom data analysis pipelines for MORF® using multiple coding languages, such as Python and R.

Javeria Mehboob

Javeria Mehboob is a current PhD student at the University of York and is working on MORF® as a part of her PhD project. She aims to implement protein aggregation propensity determining tools in MORF® by utilising her knowledge of Python and R.

Prof. Gavin Thomas

Job Titles:
  • Chief Scientific Officer
As the mastermind behind MORF® and with over 20 years of experience of studying microbial physiology through the era of genomes and multi-omics analysis, Prof. Thomas has unique insight into the research needs of bench scientists who want to be able to easily analyse their own data or present it for others to use in the future. Gavin uses MORF® on a daily basis for the research in his group at York and advises on improvements in features and useability.