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.

Emil Rozbicki joined Glencoe Software 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.

Erin Diel joined Glencoe Software in July 2020 as an image application specialist. She is responsible for supporting scientists and other professionals who use our products and developing new software applications for data handling and image analysis.

She is a neuroscientist with an interest in microscopy, neuroanatomy and auditory processing. She received a PhD in Biochemistry from Harvard University in 2018 then remained at Harvard to work as an Imaging Specialist in the Harvard Center for Biological Imaging and teach “The Musical Brain: How the Brain Processes Sound and Creates Music.” Although originally from Kansas City, she has enjoyed living and running in Boston since 2012 with her partner and their cats.

Heather joined Glencoe Software in April 2024 as a Project and Operations Specialist. She is responsible for the coordination and management of both customer facing, and internal activities across the company. Her role ensures that the exacting standards of product delivery, support and customer engagement are always maintained.

After graduating from Durham University with a BSc(Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, Heather continued her academic studies at the University of Cambridge where she successfully gained her Masters and PhD in the field of cardiometabolic disease. In addition to her experience managing multiple high pressure, high profile scientific projects, Heather has over 10 years of wet-lab experience that includes microscopy imaging and spatial profiling.

When not at the computer, Heather spends her time making memories with her husband and two children and has an obsessive interest in making anything, either by crochet, knitting or sewing!

Kyle Balis-West joined Glencoe Software in March 2022 as a software developer.

Kyle graduated from Appalachian State University in December of 2020 with a BS in computer science and a minor in mathematics. After graduating they worked as a front end developer for a year before joining Glencoe Software. Kyle likes to spend time with their wife and three dogs.

Sebastien Besson joined Glencoe Software in September 2022 as a software developer.

After receiving his PhD in Physics from the Université Pierre at Marie Curie in 2007 and a postdoctoral fellowship in biophysics at Harvard University with Dr Dumais, he worked as a software developer with the Danuser lab to package in-house analysis software for the cell biology community. In 2012, he moved to the UK to join the OME team where he spent a decade building essential open-source infrastructure for the bioimaging community including OME-TIFF, Bio-Formats, OMERO and the Image Data Resource (IDR).

Marc Bruce joined Glencoe Software in March 2023 as a customer applications lead. He specializes in translating the needs of researchers to the language of software engineering. He received his PhD in Immunology from Stanford University where he combined his expertise in algorithm development with wet lab biology. After graduate school, he founded and ran a successful startup doing GPU-accelerated image processing software. In his spare time, he dabbles in woodworking and home automation. Originally from Atlanta, he now resides in Silicon Valley with his family.

Lindsay Durward joined Glencoe Software in April 2023 as Executive Administrator, assisting Jason Swedlow with diary management and administration. She has over 30 years’ experience working in positions, including her last role of 16 years as Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive of Stagecoach Group. She also has experience packing eggs and greenkeeping! She lives and works in Blairgowrie, Scotland with her partner Tom, enjoying hillwalking, knitting, cooking and baking.

Nichola Haxton joined Glencoe Software in October 2020 as business administrator.

Originally from Aberdeen, she now lives in Dundee.

Andreas Knab has been working as a software developer for over 25 years, including more than seven 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 data management projects, including an open source digital image database 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.

Maadhav joined Glencoe Software in 2023 as an Image Applications Specialist. With a background in materials science, he began his career focusing on heterogeneous catalysis and development at Unipetrol in the Czech Republic. He furthered his expertise during his PhD at St. Andrews University, sponsored by Johnson Matthey, where he delved into novel perovskite systems for autocatalysis applications and developed a keen interest in microscopy and imaging. His knowledge in materials science is broad, covering various aspects from characterization methods to beamline techniques. He has had hands-on experience in multiple formats of imaging such as SEM, TEM and X-Ray microscopy. Previous tenure as a facility manager, post-doc working on imaging superalloys and applications scientist all within the industrial microscopy realm have focused his attention to software development and the wider notion that microscopy is going digital. Outside of his professional life, Maadhav enjoys building speaker boxes, walking, and cooking.

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.

David Stirling joined Glencoe Software in October 2021 as a biological data science specialist.

Prior to that, he worked on image analysis and development of the CellProfiler software package at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is interested in development of image processing tools which help to provide insights into biological problems. He previously received a PhD in Infection and Immunity from University College London, during which he gained experience in high throughput microscopy and data analysis.

Stephen joined Glencoe Software in June 2022 as a systems administrator.

He lives in Florida, and he enjoys hiking outdoors with his wife and taking care of their animals.

Liza Unson initially joined Glencoe in 2012. She left after eight years, then returned in January 2023 to consult on product design. She graduated from New York University with a degree in Chemistry, and from The Art Institute of California - San Francisco with a degree in Web Design & Interactive Media. When she’s not drafting wireframes or designing mockups with Figma, Liza can be found pursuing her interests in other forms of design: creating greeting cards and styling interiors. Liza lives with her husband and two children in Maryland.

Muhanad Zahra joined Glencoe Software in July 2021 as a biological data science specialist.

He is responsible for the continuous development and improvement of our data visualisation and image analysis tools while supporting researchers, scientists and other professionals who use our products. He is interested in product development, medical image processing and analysis, and bioengineering related technologies. He graduated from Imperial College London with an MSc in Biomedical Engineering specialising in Neurotechnology. During his MSc, he worked on a data science driven motor learning project at Brain & Behaviour Lab. Muhanad currently lives with his family in Manchester, England. When not being excited about his latest algorithm or script, he enjoys spending his free time playing guitar, swimming, and spending time with his family.