Torsten Seemann
Head Of Bioinformatics
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolTorsten Seemann is a Head of Bioinformatics based in Melbourne with 13 years of focused experience applying genomic sequence data to public health and clinical microbiology. He leads efforts to make genomics and genomic epidemiology accessible, combining hands-on tool development (notably Prokka and wide contributions to Bioconda) with team leadership in academic and public-health settings. A prolific open-source advocate, he has a track record of building, packaging and maintaining bioinformatics software that powers pathogen surveillance and clinical workflows. His background blends a PhD in computer science with early software engineering roles, giving him rare depth across algorithmic, systems and deployment concerns. Colleagues rely on him for pragmatic solutions to dependency, build and scaling problems in high-throughput sequencing pipelines. He’s known for turning complex microbiological questions into reproducible, community-ready tools that accelerate public-health responses.
13 years of coding experience
22 years of employment as a software developer
Moorabbin Heights Primary SchoolVCE, English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, VCE, English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry at Melbourne High SchoolPh.D, Computer Science, Ph.D, Computer Science at Monash University
English, German
Stackoverflow
11reputation
315reached
2answers
0questions
Github Skills (15)
bioinformatics10
conda10
bash10
biom10
perl10
package-management10
scripting10
xml-parsing10
documentation9
gnu-make8
javas8
java8
makefile8
dictionary6
python6
Programming languages (31)
Github contributions (5)
tseemann/prokka
Mar 2014 - Aug 2020
:zap: :aquarius: Rapid prokaryotic genome annotation
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:5 releases, 175 commits, 27 PRs in 6 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Torsten primarily contributed to the project by bundling and integrating external libraries, specifically XML::Simple and Time::* modules, to address identified issues related to XML parsing and time-related functionalities. They also addressed specific dependencies and versioning issues, such as upgrading the 'minced' library to fix a poly-N loop and updating the Java version used for bundled JAR files. Further work included improvements to documentation, specifically addressing issues with the `--docs` functionality.
genome-annotationfunctional-assignmentbacterial-genomesgene-finding
bioconda/bioconda-recipes
Jun 2016 - Mar 2020
Conda recipes for the bioconda channel.
Role in this project:Automation Engineer / Build & Release Engineer
Automation Engineer / Build & Release EngineerContributions:77 reviews, 51 commits, 163 PRs in 3 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Torsten primarily contributed to the bioconda-recipes repository by updating and adding recipes for various bioinformatics software packages. Their work involved modifying build scripts (build.sh) to update software versions, apply patches, and integrate the software into the conda package management system. The user's commits demonstrate proficiency in scripting and configuration management, ensuring software packages are correctly built and integrated within the bioconda environment. Several commits focused on setting up and configuring new software packages.
biocondacondabioinformaticspackage-management
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