My name is Greg Caporaso. I'm the primary author of An Introduction to Applied Bioinformatics, but there are other contributors and I hope that list will grow.
I have degrees in Computer Science (B.S., University of Colorado, 2001) and Biochemistry (B.A., University of Colorado, 2004; Ph.D., University of Colorado, 2009). Following my formal training, I joined Rob Knight's lab, then at the University of Colorado, for approximately 2 years as a post-doctoral scholar. In 2011, I joined the faculty at Northern Arizona University (NAU) where I'm now an Associate Professor. I teach one course per year in bioinformatics for graduate and undergraduate students of Biology. I also run a research lab in the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, which is focused on developing bioinformatics software and studying microbiomes.
I'm not the world expert on the topics that I present in IAB, but I have a passion for bioinformatics, open source software, writing, and education. When I'm learning a new bioinformatics concept, for example an algorithm like pairwise alignment or a statistical technique like Monte Carlo simulation, implementing it is usually the best way for me to understand it. This led me to start developing IAB, as I found that my implementations helped my students learn the concepts too. I think that one of my strongest skills is the ability to break complex ideas into accessible components. I do this well for bioinformatics because I remember (and still regularly experience) the challenges of learning it, so can relate to newcomers in the field.
I'm active in open source bioinformatics software development, and am most widely known for my development and leadership roles on QIIME and QIIME 2. I'm involved in other bioinformatics software projects as well (see my GitHub page). IAB is one of the projects that I'm currently most excited about, and I truly hope that it's as useful for you as it is fun for me.
For updates on IAB and various other things, you can follow me on Twitter.