Meet the Team

Dr. Joyce Bennett

A biologist by training, Dr Joyce Bennett builds on her extensive project management experience to lead the MORF-Bio team and business strategy, guiding the transition from an academic tool to a commercial enterprise. Joyce was awarded an Enterprise Fellowship from the BBSRC High Value Biorenewables NIBB and recently completed the ICURe accelerator programme.

Prof. Gavin Thomas

As the mastermind behind MORF® and with over 20 years of experience of studying microbial physiology through the era of genomes and multi-omics analysis, Prof. Thomas has unique insight into the research needs of bench scientists who want to be able to easily analyse their own data or present it for others to use in the future. Gavin uses MORF® on a daily basis for the research in his group at York and advises on improvements in features and useability.

Dr. Vicki Springthorpe

Dr. Vicki Springthorpe is the lead developer and creator of MORF®, combining her skills in coding (including Python, R and JavaScript) with those in omics analysis and database design. She leads feature development and guides the technical team.

Isaac trained as a computer scientist and first joined MORF as a summer intern, and impressed the team with his creativity and technical ability. He now joins the spin-out as a Platform Engineer, focusing on building and scaling the platform infrastructure that underpins MORF’s data-driven biotechnology solutions.

Denys first joined MORF as a summer intern while studying Computer Science and impressed the team with his creativity and technical ability. He now continues with MORF alongside his Master’s degree, focusing on product development and artificial intelligence to enhance platform features and accelerate insights for biotechnology researchers.

Dr Sandy Macdonald is experienced in a wide range of bioinformatic analyses and specialises in genome scale metabolic models. Sandy supports client projects and developing in-house software tools.