Mr Stephen Robinson, BSc (Hons) MSc PGDip MSc

Senior Web Developer

I have been on campus for over 25 years, working on the EBI/Uniprot websites, the retired Helix campus intranet, FredApps, Wellcome Sanger Institute website, Connecting Science/Public Engagement websites and many others.

With an original background of zoology, human anatomy, electro-physiology and animal behaviour, I specialised in working with light, confocal and electron microscopes, photography and image analysis. After specialising in immuno-cryotechniques in biological electron microscopy, I then went on to gain a professional qualification in biological imaging and analysis techniques and specialised in providing an ensembl of light/confocal/electron microscopy services to molecular biologists, and to clinicians dissatisfied with MD’s clinicians analysis (plus specimin prep) of their patients disorders. I then completed a masters in computing and after working in a London media agency took up a 9 year position as a LAMP/Drupal Web Developer in the European Bioinformatics Institute where I worked with Pressflow, Drupal, PHPBB, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Contribute, Dokuwiki, Mediawiki, Jira, Confluence, SOAP/AJAX, XML/XSL, Perl, Ruby on Rails, Java, JSP, JSF, Applets, Flash, Servlets, CGI, C, Python, Apache admin, Tomcat admin and SVN. I started a new position in the Wellcome Sanger Institute as a Senior Drupal Web Developer looking after the Helix intranet, the Drupal Sanger website utilising Drupal, Apache-SOLR and rest API’s. I am now based around WordPress, React and NodeJS.

I have a Computer Science degree along with 3 biomedical qualifications. I work with Full-stack web development in a Linux (Ubuntu) environment with relational databases such as MySQL utilising version control using Git. I use Front-end frameworks (WordPress, React, React Router, React JSON Schema Form) along with HTML, Modern JavaScript/Typescript, SASS, GULP, AJAX, JSON, jQuery, Photoshop and build back-ends primarily currently in NodeJS Express. I Translate designs into responsive websites across modern browsers and devices taking into account Web accessibility, optimising for visual impairment, colour blindness, graphic design and disability requirements. I Consume RESTful APIs and rendering content dynamically. Some examples of websites I have worked on are:

https://www.genomicsatscale.org/, https://www.ibdverse.info/, https://www.nematodes.org/,
https://www.varianteffect.org/, https://www.malariagen.net/, https://www.ga4gh.org, https://www.sanger.ac.uk/, https://www.onecellatatime.org/, https://publicengagement.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/, https://societyandethicsresearch.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/,  https://www.yourgenome.org/, https://coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/, https://www.hinxtonhall.org/ and https://www.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/.

The now retired Drupal Sanger website and the now retired Helix Drupal campus intranet utilised Apache-SOLR and rest API’s, automated update of publication lists, users and events from other sites like http://www.ebi.ac.uk/, import of blog cards from https://sangerinstitute.blog/ and https://www.yourgenome.org/. Also Electric vehicle charging application using REST, event integration for TV screens, ICAL and google calendars, email bulletins, feeds.
FB style forum walls, lost and found, “gumtree” with inline commenting and email alerts, FB style mailman integrated email mailing list walls with inline commenting/emailing, LDAP bulk users import/update, role assignment, group management. Multi institute integration of staff and events. Shibboleth Integration for multi institute access and accounts. Commenting, liking, bookmarking, following and custom email notifications. Webforms and integration into finance, safety, equipment, accounting, maintenance , DHL and other systems for workflow purposes like accounting, social event registrations, polls, feedback etc. Apache Solr search integration and per user results dependant on access rights. Permission management per user or role for files, groups, pages, fields etc. I also was ajaxifying everything, views results etc, ajaxifying solr, search suggestions, results lightbox and replacing many Drupal components with lighter ones for content panes and menus.

My timeline

• Launch of https://www.genomicsatscale.org/

• Launch of https://www.ibdverse.info/ 

• Launch of https://www.nematodes.org/

• Launch of canceravoidance/FORTESSA prototype

• Re-launch of FreddApps using Vite and Incipere base theme

• Launch of https://www.varianteffect.org/

• Relaunch of https://www.hinxtonhall.org/

• Launch of https://www.malariagen.net/

• Launch of https://www.ga4gh.org/

• Launch of https://www.yourgenome.org/

• Launch of https://societyandethicsresearch.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/

• Launch of https://publicengagement.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/

• Launch of https://www.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/

• Launch of https://www.hinxtonhall.org/

• Launch of https://coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/

• Launch of https://www.onecellatatime.org/

• Launch of https://www.youmeandus.org/

• Launch of https://www.sanger.ac.uk

• Launch of https://www.cogconsortium.uk/

• Launch of FredApps (ReactJS/NodeJs/Express)

• Launch of the www.sanger.ac.uk Drupal website.

• Started work at the Sanger Institute, building the helix.wtgc.org Drupal Campus Intranet.

• Started work on the new www.uniprot.org website.

• Started work on the new internal.ebi.ac.uk Intranet.

• Started work at the EBI, building the new www.ebi.ac.uk website.