The Steering Committee creates and implements tactical and operational initiatives for BIRN and its major constituencies. Members include Working Group chairs, key user group representatives, Community Service Award recipients, and an Executive Committee member – a cross-section designed to ensure BIRN serves all its audiences.
BIRN User Communities
Karl Helmer, Ph.D.
Structural Imaging Liaison
helmer at nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
Karl Helmer is an instructor in radiology at Harvard Medical School and an assistant in research in the Massachusetts General Hospital Radiology Department. He previously was project manager and a researcher for the Brain Morphometry BIRN. Helmer specializes in brain diffusion tensor imaging, and in design and optimization of multi-site magnetic resonance imaging trials. Within BIRN, he focuses on defining imaging domain user needs and manages new scientific community outreach.
David B. Keator, M.S.
Function BIRN
dbkeator at uci.edu
David B. Keator is director of scientific computing for the University of California at Irvine (UCI) Brain Imaging Center and the chair of the Function BIRN (FBIRN) neuroinformatics working group. He has extensive experience in medical imaging analysis and informatics methods.  Keator’s current work includes large-scale data federations in neuroimaging and application of machine learning and probabilistic models to medical imaging data.
Seth Ruffins, Ph.D.
MouseBIRN
sruffins at loni.ucla.edu
Seth Ruffins is project manager for MouseBIRN, based at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and led by BIRN Principal Investigator Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D. Ruffins specializes in the construction of developmental atlases and biological visualization. He is also a scientist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Biological Imaging Center, and at Caltech’s Center of Excellence in Genomic Sciences.
Jessica Turner, Ph.D.
Function BIRN
turnerj at uci.edu
Jessica Turner is project manager for the Function BIRN testbed, headed by BIRN Principal Investigator Stephen G. Potkin, Ph.D. She is an assistant professor in residence at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. Â Her primary research interests are in multivariate analyses of imaging data, and in ontological representations of cognitive experiments.
Collaborators
The Steering Committee also includes representatives from other major user groups, such as Primates and the Cardio Vascular Research Grid.
Working Groups
Jose-Luis Ambite, Ph.D.
Chair, Information Integration
ambite at isi.edu
Jose-Luis Ambite is a project leader at the Information Sciences Institute and a research assistant professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Computer Science Department. An information integration expert, he leads data integration for three major ISI bioinformatics grants and for the clinically oriented Center for Health Informatics.
Rachana Ananthakrishnan, M.S.
Co-chair, Security
ranantha at mcs.anl.gov
Rachana Ananthakrishnan is a principal software development specialist at Argonne National Laboratory and a staff appointee at the Computation Institute at University of Chicago. She is also the Argonne Project Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Earth System Grid and is lead developer on many Globus Toolkit components. Ananthakrishnan works primarily in grid security and web services for secure distributed data access and resource sharing.
Gully A.P.C. Burns, Ph.D.
Chair, Knowledge Engineering
gully at usc.edu
Gully Burns is a project leader at ISI, where he focuses on pragmatic biomedical knowledge engineering systems that reduce information overload and enable scientists to use information more effectively. He is also the principal investigator for multiple federally funded grants, as well as a Research Assistant Professor of neurobiology at USC’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Ann Chervenak, Ph.D.
Co-chair, Data Management
annc at isi.edu
Ann Chervenak is a project leader at ISI and a research assistant professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Computer Science Department. Â An expert in data management issues for large scientific collaborations, she leads research and development efforts in data and replication management. Â Chervenak is working with BIRN to define science use cases and provide data management capabilities for the user community.
Stephen Langella, M.S.
Co-Chair, Security
stephen.langella at osumc.edu
Stephen Langella co-directs the Ohio State University (OSU) Software Research Institute, a component of OSU’s Center of IT Innovations in Health Care, and is a senior researcher and adjunct instructor in the OSU Department of Biomedical Informatics. He is also lead security architect for the caGrid project, director of the caGrid Knowledge Center, and senior architect of OSU’s Clinical and Translational Science Award. His research interests include security, grid and high performance distributed computing.
Lee Liming
Co-chair, Operations
liming at mcs.anl.gov
Lee Liming is a technology analyst in the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute and Argonne National Laboratory. A leader in the Globus open-source grid software community, his non-BIRN work currently includes National Science Foundation-sponsored high performance computing facilities, grid software development and scientific computing.
John-Paul Navarro
Co-chair, Operations
navarro at mcs.anl.gov
John-Paul Navarro works in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, and has a joint staff appointment in the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute. His background includes business, academic, and scientific programming, databases, knowledge based systems, high- performance computing, and grid computing. His primary assignment is currently as area co-director for software integration in the National Science Foundation-sponsored TeraGrid project.
Laura Pearlman
Co-chair, Security
laura at isi.edu
Laura Pearlman is a computer scientist who focuses on grid computing security in the Medical Information Systems Division (MISD), based at the Information Sciences Institute. Pearlman’s work has included security and monitoring for the Globus Toolkit, and architecture and telecontrol services for the earthquake engineering NEESgrid.
Robert Schuler
Co-chair, Data Management
schuler at isi.edu
Robert Schuler is a systems programmer in ISI’s Medical Information Systems Division, where he develops software and tools for biomedical data management. His research interests include scalable wide-area replication and related services, data placement strategies, and novel scientific data management architectures. Schuler has worked in database federation, data modeling, data distribution workflows and secure document management for major corporations.
Robert W. Williams, Ph.D.
Chair, Genomics
rwilliam at nb.utmem.edu
Robert W. Williams is a professor of anatomy and neurobiology, and of the Center for Neuroscience, at the University of Tennessee (UT) Health Science Center. He also holds the Governor’s Chair in Computational Genomics at the UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory and directs the UT Center for Integrative and Translational Genomics, among other roles. His interests include system genetics, gene expression control, and central nervous system disease genetics.
Administration
Joseph Ames
Executive Director, BIRN
jdames at uci.edu
Joseph Ames has overall responsibility for tracking BIRN’s progress, addressing user needs, coordinating working groups and overseeing Community Service outreach. He coordinates the BIRN Executive Committee and chairs the Steering Committee. Ames has extensive private sector experience in communication, management and personnel issues, including managing creative people and developing efficient, focused and productive interdisciplinary teams. He has been Executive Director since 2005.
Cristina Williams
Web/wiki guru
cristina at isi.edu
Cristina Williams is ISI’s chief liaison for BIRN website and wiki operations. She oversees creation and implementation of BIRN online activities, including architecture, content and graphics, and a similar role with the Medical Information Systems Division.  Williams has been web administrator for The Globus Alliance, whose Toolkit is the de facto grid computing standard.  Her background is in technical writing for various industries.
