MGIS Team

Who are the people behind the MGIS web site?

Core Team

  • Max Ruas, Senior Officer

MGIS project leader and responsible for the content (Passport & characterisation Data and photos). Max ensures connection with the many MusaNet partners providing data on their collection as well as trainings on the use of the MGIS ecosystems (including MusaTab, MusaID). Max also works closely with the ITC staff in Leuven to ensure that the passport data of the collection are up to date. He also answers to questions and remarks sent through the contact form.

  • Valentin Guignon, Associate Scientist 

Leads the software development of the website.  Drupal, Tripal and Chado guru, Valentin ensures the quality of the development and he is involved in Tripal discussions. He is also at the origin of several original features like the comparison tool and the Graphical Descriptors Interface Selection and Dupal modules (BrAPI, PhyloTree, GIGWA).

  • Mathieu Rouard, Senior Scientist

Responsible for the genomics and phenotyping content and manages curation of publications. Mathieu oversees core team developments, particularly interested in graphical features and user-friendlyness. He also ensures that MGIS is well connected and integrated with the tools of the Banana Genome Hub, Musabase and other relevant datasets developed by the research community.

  • Christophe Jenny, CIRAD researcher

Christophe with his comprehensive knowledge in Musa spp. and expertise in information systems provides guidance to better shape MGIS. He is also the project leader of the in situ observations project we are collaborating on to make connections between ex situ and in situ information.

Other Key contributors

  • Taxonomy Advisory Group (TAG) Expert

The TAG is composed of 12 Musa taxonomists: Joseph Adheka, Jeff Daniells, Jean Pierre Horry, Christophe Jenny, Deborah Karamura, Lucien Ibobondji,  Janet Paofa,  Gabriel Sachter-Smith, Agus Sutanto, Rony Swennen, Kodjo Tomekpe. We Thank them for their help to validate the results from the Field Verification routine operation.

  • Curators of participating Musa collections

A special thanks to the curators and their institutes for being confident enough to sign the MGIS Data Sharing Agreement to contribute to MGIS. They enrich MGIS and it would not exist without them. I cannot all cite them all, but you will find their name under the page of their respective collection listed here.

  • Rachel Chase, Associate Scientist

Rachel coordinated the Field Verification work for the ITC Genebank. Rachel uses MGIS as a repository for data and photos provided by our partners in Puerto Rico (USDA), manages the review of the photos and data by the TAG experts through a dedicated MGIS dashboard. Rachel also kindly ensures that the English text on the website is correct.

  • Els Kempenaers, ITC technician

Els communicates regurlarly on any data changes between Leuven and Montpellier to keep the ITC collection data up to date.

  • Julie Sardos, Scientist

Julie, a geneticist, helps us to track inconsistencies in ploidy and classification of MGIS content. Over the last years, Julie led and participated in several collecting mission in Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands and so on.. She therefore helped greatly enrich the content of MGIS.

  • Ines Van den Houwe, ITC Genebank Curator

Ines ensures that the latest introduction and passport data available at the ITC are correctly reflected on MGIS. Ines is also the person answering to the request posted trough the Musa Online Ordering system (MOOS).

  • Nicolas Roux, Principal Scientist, MusaNet coordinator

Nicolas has ensured due recognition of our MGIS work in the Banana research domain and the MusaNet community.

  • Bart Panis, Principal Scientist, ITC Genebank manager

Bart prioritises activities within the ITC genebank as manager. He ensures promotion on the system as part of the genebank activities.

  • Sebastien Carpentier, Principal Scientist, Banana program leader

Sebastien provides feedback on the MGIS content in particular with regards to phenotyping and evaluation data in the ITC collection. He ensures promotion on the system as part of the program activities as program leader.

Past contributors

  • Edmond de Langhe, TAG member

  • Rachel Chase, Associate Scientist

Rachel coordinated the Field Verification work for the ITC Genebank. Rachel uses MGIS as a repository for data and photos provided by our partners in Puerto Rico (USDA), manages the review of the photos and data by the TAG experts through a dedicated MGIS dashboard. Rachel also kindly ensures that the English text on the website is correct.

  • Felip Manyer, Drupal Developer

Felip is a Drupal Developer who helps us to better integrate Musa In situ datasets into MGIS. Felip also helped with the transition to Openstreet map which replaced Google map.

  • Hugo Duvergey, Software developer

Hugo was instrumental in writing codes for the first iteration of the MGIS web site.

  • Guilhem Sempere, Software Engineer

Guilhem has a long relationship with MGIS, being the main developer of the ante 2016 version of the web site. Guilhem now in charge of GIGWA tool development to help us to integrate it into MGIS and allowing genomicist to look after markers information.

  • Kais Jelali

Kais started the compilation of articles citing ITC materials. This early work paved the way to the current feature listing phenotypic and genotypic studies on the MGIS web site.

Interns

From 2016 to 2019, annual internships from the Department of Computer science at IUT of Montpellier started the development of several features. Thanks go to: Alexis Andrieu, Sheila Barron, Samira Younesy and Sarah Barriere.

They contributed to field verification interface, data versioning, passport data upload, collection online page update and accession online page update.