Symplectic people
Daniel Hook - Managing Director
Daniel's main responsibilities within Symplectic are for product development strategy, sales and marketing, as well as external relationship management.
This role sees him travelling within the UK and internationally, talking to academics, research managers, librarians, funding councils, publishers and data providers. This gives him a detailed awareness of systems requirements right across the higher education sector at both a strategic and a technical level.
Before founding Symplectic, Daniel worked in professional programming in telecommunications, writing software for a call routing/cost optimisation product, which now runs in a number of telecoms providers worldwide. He has written in C++, C#, VB.NET, VB 6 and SQL, and has been involved with structural database development for a Content Management System for Imperial College London.
For Symplectic, Daniel also specialises in:
- Implementation strategies - at both a technical and personnel level
- Systems integration - interfaces between disparate systems
- Information flows within complex environments
- Organisational modelling - analysis of organisational structuring
- Optimising navigational structure in websites
In addition to Daniel's programming and corporate experience he continues to play an active role in theoretical physics research. His interests include quantum statistical mechanics, the application of geometric tools to quantum theory, PT-Symmetric quantum theory, complexification of classical mechanical systems, information geometry and and social network theory.
Academic homepage at Imperial College
John Fearns - Director
John's computing interests began with games programming for the BBC microcomputer in the early eighties, and later the development of general relativistic ray-tracing software on the Acorn Archimedes and PC, before joining the programming world professionally in 2002.
He specialises in asynchronous programming and the architecture of distributed systems, and this has underpinned much of the Publications System's ease of integration within organisations, such as with web sites, authentication systems and Institutional Repositories.
John's efforts now concentrate on:
- Core Publications product development with an emphasis on interoperability
- The company's reusable technologies
- Maintenance and development of the Symplectic Invigilator student management system
Marko Ivin - Director
Marko heads the technical development of Symplectic's Publications Management System. He works with all the other developers on the project to ensure that the system maintains consistency of technical implementation across the wide range of functions it carries out.
Prior to his involvement in Symplectic, he studied at Imperial College London in the Theoretical Physics group under Tim Evans. His PhD concentrated on diagrammatic and computational/numerical approaches to quantum field theory, which led him to develop considerable skills in C++ and high precision computing algorithms.
Marko has led a number of projects at Symplectic including the ongoing maintenance of the Symplectic Content Management System, programming an innovative multi-faceted News and Events management system, creating management databases for HR and financial processes, and developing software for the NHS.
Marko currently specialises in SQL and .NET Framework as these are the core of Symplectic's software. However, he has considerable understanding of a wider range of programming languages and technologies.
For Symplectic, Marko also specialises in:
- Systems implementation
- Systems integration
- Research into new technologies
- Development methodologies
Marko continues to apply his research skills, usually to the most recent programming technology that he's found to investigate on the web.
Philip Parkin - Director
Philip has been involved with programming, mainly in an academic context, since the early nineties; from simulating the paths of photons orbiting black holes through to modelling phase transitions in Bose-Einstein condensates as part of his PhD.
For Symplectic, Philip has focused on:
- Creating a file management system for the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College
- A complete ASP.NET application tracking student placements and invoices for the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College
- Developing innovative user-friendly graphical user interfaces for our core products
Lizzie Dipple - Recruitment, Client Contracts and Project Coordination
Lizzie joined the Symplectic team in 2010 to manage the JISC-funded RePosit project, and her role at the company has grown to encompass a wide range of non-technical business support activities. She has experience of large-scale IT project implementations in commercial environments from her time as an SAP business consultant. Since then she has worked in the book publishing industry, latterly in editorial project management, both in-house and in a freelance capacity. She also has a side line in editing cookery books, and the Symplectic team occasionally reap the benefits of home baking.
Her specialist areas are communications, understanding the connection points between different workflows and building strong working relationships. Within Symplectic, Lizzie’s interests include improving and streamlining work processes, bringing exceptional new talent into the company and helping to maintain the company’s high quality standards, both for clients and for employees.
Geirmund Knutsen – Product Manager
Geirmund’s main role is to manage the Symplectic product lifecycle – to take software from requirements to release. This involves being a conduit between the clients and the development team on the Symplectic Customer Support site; planning the content and schedule of the development work; and production and publication of documentation for Symplectic’s product range.
After completing his MSci in Mathematics at Imperial College London, Geirmund spent many years as a consultant in the Financial Services industry. Specialising in the testing of trading platforms for investment banks and stock exchanges, he led test teams for several significant implementations. Since Geirmund’s time in the City, he has completed a second master’s degree in European Thought at University College London (UCL). Most recently he has spent 18 months living in Oslo, Norway, where he worked as a project manager for a Microsoft partner company. Continuing his Nordic love of the outdoors, Geirmund cycles to the office every day.
Julia Hawks - VP, North America
Julia is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she leads our North American business with a particular focus on client relationships, local initiatives, and sales and marketing strategy. Julia has been working with academic institutions around the globe since 2001 in a variety of roles centred around account management, product specialization, and training.
These roles enabled Julia to gain a deep insight into the academic community, particularly the function and future of university libraries, during one of the most significant periods of their histories: the universal shift from traditional print materials to electronic resources. More recently, her focus has been on research evaluation and how technology, data, and bibliometrics can add value to research assessment exercises and institutional review.
Julia grew up in the West Country of England and her years of living in the USA have not weakened her liking for tea and Cornish pasties, or her need to carry an umbrella wherever she travels.
Graham Triggs - Head of Repository Systems
Graham leads the development of components that allow Elements to integrate seamlessly with institutional repository platforms. Having worked with DSpace since 2006 in implementing hosted services, Graham has acquired a great deal of experience of the variety of requirements for repository implementations.
He came to the repository space after many years of developing solutions for the publishing industry - creating technology for open access publishing platforms, infrastructure for collating evaluations of published articles, and enhanced indexes of Medline data.
Outside of the office, Graham can often be found in a theatre (or a room in a pub that passes as a performance space), supporting live comedy and music. Once a year, you may even catch him running back and forth across Edinburgh to get between Fringe venues.
Christopher Buckland - Junior Developer
Chris joined Symplectic as an MSci physics graduate from Imperial College London. After first completing an internship at the company, Chris quickly transitioned into programming and permanently joined the development team. As part of this team he explores and develops new features in SQL and the .NET framework.
Chris’s past work experience includes working abroad in a variety of jobs, and travelling still remains a passion for him. In particular he loves the great outdoors, and where he can he combines this with travel - whether it be Via Ferrata in Italy or ice climbing in Scotland - he always wears a smile.
Vitaliy Kuznetsov - Implementation Manager
As implementation manager, Vitaliy provides assistance to clients during installation of Symplectic’s software – making sure that all the clients’ data is accurately transferred. He is also involved in the company’s ongoing product development, including the development and improvement of implementation and installation tools.
Before joining the team, Vitaliy worked in leading research institutes as a molecular biologist. He did his PhD at Cancer Research UK and University College London, where he was focusing on the role of chromosome stability in cancer progression. Later he moved to the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, developing tools to identify crucial genes. During his research experience Vitaliy was involved in developing software for image analysis of high-resolution confocal microscopy images and also making database tools for analysing and organising research data.
Away from the office, Vitaliy is a keen swimmer – although he can sometimes be persuaded to postpone a trip to the pool for a company social event.
Tim Evans - Head of Research
Tim Evans is a senior lecturer in theoretical physics at Imperial College London. Tim has published more than 50 papers covering research topics from thermal field and quantum theory to complex network theory and cultural transmission in the ancient Aegean.
Tim works closely with Symplectic to enhance the usability of our products from the perspective of an academic researcher. He also works with the team on the development of statistical, bibliometric and community analysis tools within Symplectic Publications, advising not only on general direction, but also on the specifics of particular indicators and metrics.
