Peter Midford
Computational Biologist
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolPeter Midford is a computational biologist with 20 years of experience building ontologies, databases, and backend tools that bridge biology and computer science. He specializes in behavioral phenotype ontologies—currently leading the development of a spider behavior ontology and integrating major behavior ontologies (NBO and ABO)—and is fluent with Protege, OWL-API and semantic web technologies. His background spans research-grade software in Java and Python, large-scale taxonomy integration (100K+ terms in the VTO), and practical database engineering for MySQL/Postgres and semantic resources. Having moved between academia, nonprofit projects and industry (including long-term work at SRI International and the Open Tree of Life project), he pairs deep domain knowledge in zoology with hands-on engineering. Notably, he has repeatedly combined field-driven vocabulary curation with tool development and community engagement to make behavioral data computable and reusable.
20 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Zoology, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Zoology at University of Wisconsin-MadisonMaster’s Degree, Computer Science, Master’s Degree, Computer Science at Yale UniversityBachelor’s Degree, Mathematics, Bachelor’s Degree, Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College
German, Japanese
Stackoverflow
43reputation
568reached
0answers
1question
Github Skills (50)
maintenance10
explore10
ontologies9
ecology9
semantics9
metadata9
ncbi9
ontology9
semantic-web9
traits9
bioinformatics9
ott9
validate9
owl9
rdf8
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
pmidford/Spider-Behavior
Jun 2015 - Oct 2024
Contributions:7 PRs, 23 pushes, 7 branches in 9 years 6 months
pmidford/arachadmin
Jan 2015 - Mar 2023
Contributions:12 PRs, 17 pushes, 8 branches in 8 years 4 months
approachdatabaseweb2py
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