About Us

Jason Swedlow earned a BA in Chemistry from Brandeis University in 1982 and PhD in Biophysics from UCSF in 1994. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr T.J. Mitchison at UCSF and then Harvard Medical School, Dr Swedlow established his own laboratory in 1998 at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, University of Dundee, as a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in 2002 and named Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology in 2007. His lab focuses on studies of mitotic chromosome structure and dynamics and has published numerous leading papers in the field. He is co-founder of the Open Microscopy Environment (OME), a community-led open source software project that develops specifications and tools for biological imaging. In 2005, he founded Glencoe Software, Inc., a commercial start-up that provides commercial licenses and customization for OME software. In 2011, Prof Swedlow and the OME Consortium were named BBSRC’s Social Innovator of the Year and Overall Innovator of the Year. In 2012, he was named Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Prof Swedlow has organized or directed several courses in quantitative microscopy at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA and the National Centre for Biological Science, Bangalore. India.

Chris Allan is a Canadian-born software developer and systems administrator from Vancouver, British Columbia who joined the Swedlow lab in early 2003. His early contributions were the initial implementation of mass-storage infrastructure and network groundwork to support the University of Dundee’s Light Microscopy Facility (LMF), but he now spends most of his time working on the OMERO.server project.

Chris gained most of his systems administration and software development expertise as a high school student working in the commercial sector doing security, systems and network consulting for local companies and as a contractor/employee in the GT Trust high-security solutions team of GT Group Telecom Services (now a division of Bell Canada). His software interests lie in the fields of distributed computing, secure programming practices and encryption.

When not with a head down in Java, C++ or Applied Cryptography he can be seen playing the most Canadian of games, ice hockey, with various teams in Dundee including Hockey For All.

Joshua Ballanco joined Glencoe Software in November 2013. Prior to that, he helped build operating systems with Apple, local news websites with AOL, and consulted with companies large and small as Chief Scientist at Burnside Digital.

Before, and sometimes concurrent with his career as a professional software developer, he was a student of Evolutionary Biology, attaining his Ph.D. in the field in 2011. These days, he lives in beautiful Miami with his wife and two young children.

Jean-Marie Burel joined the staff of the Swedlow lab in 2003. Since then, he’s been contributing to the development of OME, and spends most of his time working on the OMERO.insight project. He received is PhD in mathematics from the University of Brest in 2000. His research interests lie in the area of harmonic maps, harmonic morphisms and geometric structure.

After his PhD, he worked in a private company as a developer then moved (September 2001) to Lund University, Sweden, where he held a post-doctoral research position. Jean-Marie now enjoys the muddy rugby pitches of Scotland.

Andreas Knab has been working as a software developer for over 20 years, including more than five at Glencoe Software. He received his MS degree in Computer Science from James Madison University, Virginia in 1999.

Since then, he has worked on a number of educational software projects, including an open source digital media management and teaching tool used in art history programs at numerous universities. After living 16 years in the United States and 18 months in Barcelona, he and his wife currently reside in his native Germany. He enjoys reading, cooking, and loves traveling around Europe and the world.

Kevin Kozlowski joined Glencoe Software in 2018 as a software developer. Prior to that, he developed data analytics software for Amazon Alexa in Cambridge, MA and economics software for Bloomberg L.P. in New York, NY. He holds an MSM in finance from Case Western Reserve University and a BS in mathematics from the University of Michigan.

Kevin currently lives with his wife in Idaho Falls, ID. Outside of work, he enjoys drawing, music, cooking, and games.

Melissa Linkert is a programmer living in the Wisconsin area. She works on the Bio-Formats package, as well as the OME plugins for ImageJ.

She previously worked as part of LOCI on the Bio-Formats project.

Chris MacLeod joined Glencoe Software in 2012 as a systems administrator.

Chris has a background in psychology and computer science. When he’s not wrangling servers, he is an avid disc golfer, occasional chef, husband, and father to two children.

Josh Moore joined both the Swedlow lab and Glencoe Software at the beginning of 2005 after having used OME software at the German Cancer Research Center. The architect of the OMERO server, he now leads the open source OME team along with Jean-Marie Burel.

He lives in the Rhine Valley with his wife and two kids.

Emil Rozbicki joined Glencoe in October 2013 as Applications Specialist.

He is responsible for testing and quality assurance and development of new software applications for data analysis and processing. Emil is a physicist interested in computational physics, biophysics and bioengineering.

He received MSc in theoretical solid state physics from Wroclaw University of Technology in 2007 and PhD in experimental solid state physics from University of St Andrews in 2011. He worked as postdoctoral fellow in C. J. Weijer group in Dundee, where he designed and built the first light-sheet microscopy setup in the UK. In his free time he enjoys cooking, photography, and long walks with his wife and daughter Maya.

Liza Unson joined Glencoe in January 2012 as a Senior UI/UX Designer.

She has a BA in Chemistry from New York University, but later decided to switch careers from HR consulting to design after majoring in Web Design and Interactive Media at The Art Institute in California - San Francisco.

When she’s not drafting wireframes, creating mockups, and coding in HTML and CSS, she can be found pursuing her interests in interior design and travel.

Liza lives in suburban Maryland with her husband and two kids, but she’ll always be a New York City girl at heart.

Wilma Woudenberg joined Glencoe in April 2012 as Jason’s Personal Assistant. She also provides support for his work with the OME team at the University of Dundee in Scotland.