Trainer biographies

Josh Abramson | Google DeepMind

Josh is a machine learning engineer and researcher, focusing on structural biology.

Sylvia Christie | Google DeepMind

Sylvia Christie has worked in social purpose technologies and education for over 10 years. She currently focuses on equity in AI education, including an international Master’s scholarship program and other university-level initiatives

ThankGod Ebenezer | EMBL-EBI

Dr. ThankGod Ebenezer is Global Engagement Manager for EMBL-EBI Data Services at EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), UK, where his role focuses on exploring new approaches and potential uses of open data in low-resource settings. Prior to taking up this role, ThankGod was Bioinformatician at QBio.AI and University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine where his role focused on addressing drug discovery challenges using AI and developing pipelines for early cancer detection using circulating tumour DNA methylation markers and machine learning techniques respectively. Prior to joining Cambridge, Dr Ebenezer was previously a Bioinformatician at European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), where he developed computational pipelines for automatic functional annotation of proteins using evolutionary models and software engineering best practices. Dr Ebenezer studied for his PhD degree in Biochemistry at University of Cambridge, UK, where he worked on genome of Euglena gracilis. He has a MSc in Environmental Toxicology and Pollution Management from University of Lagos, Nigeria, and a BSc in Parasitology and Entomology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. Dr Ebenezer is involved in fostering dynamic international and regional collaborations in science, including providing opportunities that has trained over 500 African scientists in hands-on genomics and bioinformatics practicals using local resources since 2022.

Jennifer Fleming | EMBL-EBI

Jennifer is an X-ray crystallographer by training and has worked on solving many fascinating structures. Over the course of her career, she became increasingly captivated by structural bioinformatics and molecular dynamics, using these tools to better understand and contextualise the structures she studied. This journey led her to her current role as the coordinator of the Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe) at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) where she leads a talented team of team of bioinformaticians, data scientists, and programmers. Together, they manage projects that integrate diverse macromolecular structure data and annotations into the PDBe-Knowledge Base (PDBe-KB) and the AlphaFold Protein Structure database.

Piraveen Gopalasingam | EMBL-EBI

Piv joined EMBL-EBI in 2017 as a Scientific Training Officer for the Training team. He co-leads the EMBL Train-the-Trainer programme and has delivered courses for ELIXIR and CABANA. Piv has experience in policy development, science communication, community building, mentoring, equality, diversity, and inclusion. Piv is also a representative of the EMBL Staff Association. From 2017 – 2022, Piv was primarily responsible for coordinating and supporting training activities as part of the CABANA project, a bioinformatics capacity building programme in Latin America aligned with the UN Sustainable Development goals. Piv participated in the public engagement working group and chairs the Wellcome Genome Campus Race Equity Network. He has also participated as a mentor and expert within Open Life Science (https://we-are-ols.org/). Piv gained his BSc in Biomedical sciences at Queen Mary University of London in 2009 before completing his PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2015, investigating the structural biology of cancer-causing phosphatases. Piv conducted research at the University of Warwick studying receptor-ligand interactions and later taught at Kingston University London. He obtained associate fellowship status from the Higher Education Academy, supervised structural bioinformatics MSc projects, co-organised the local Cafe Scientifique and co-founded the London chapter of PubhD.

Oleg Kovalevskiy | Google DeepMind

Oleg Kovalevskiy started his career as a protein biochemist, receiving full “gene to structure” training at YSBL, University of York before going on to experimentally solve a number of structures. He subsequently focused on the development of automation software for macromolecular crystallography and cryoEM at MRC LMB in Cambridge, later becoming a CCP4 Core team member at Harwell, Oxfordshire. Currently Oleg is an Applied Scientist, focusing on structural biology and support of AlphaFold at Google DeepMind.

Agata Laydon | Google DeepMind

Agata Laydon is the Portfolio Lead for Life Sciences in Google DeepMind’s Impact Accelerator team, accelerating the impact of GDM’s technology to address key societal challenges. She has collaborated with the AlphaFold team since 2020, and partnered with EMBL-EBI to develop the AlphaFold Database. Prior to Google DeepMind, Agata worked at charities and tech start-ups focused on social impact, and her background is in strategy, product and partnerships.

Paulyna Magaña | EMBL-EBI

Sameer Velankar | EMBL-EBI

PhD, Indian Institute of Science, 1997. Postdoctoral researcher, Oxford University, UK, 1997-2000. At EMBL-EBI since 2000. More information on the team.

Augustin Žídekvskiy | Google DeepMind

Augustin Žídek works as a Research Engineer at DeepMind and has been a member of the protein folding team since 2017. He studied Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. He enjoys working at the boundary of research and engineering, hiking, playing musical instruments and fixing things.