John Damask

John Damask is a seasoned professional currently serving as the Vice President of Data & Systems Engineering at Flagship Pioneering, a position he has held since May 2019.1 With over 20 years of experience in delivering value through software and informatics solutions, Damask brings a wealth of expertise to his role.1

Professional Background

Prior to joining Flagship Pioneering, Damask had an impressive career trajectory:

Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR):: He spent eleven years at NIBR, taking on various roles of increasing responsibility. His most recent position there was Global Head of Cloud Computing, where he led the team responsible for all aspects of the corporate cloud platform.1

Consulting Practice:: Earlier in his career, Damask ran his own consulting practice for a decade, creating innovative software and data products across various industries.1

Expertise and Achievements

John Damask's areas of expertise include:

• Leadership and management of global teams
• Value creation and delivery
• IT Service Management and Operations
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Data and software architecture
• Coding in multiple languages
• Bioinformatics with a focus on proteomics
• IoT and Bluetooth Low Energy technologies

Some of his notable achievements include:

• Building global automated platforms for high-throughput labs at NIBR, resulting in savings of millions of dollars and decades of manual effort
• Developing integrated data warehouses that allowed for rapid, in silico explorations of diverse topics including chemical biology, proteomics, transcriptomics, and proteogenomics1
• Receiving an NIH grant to develop a decision support system for proteomic researchers1

Current Role at Flagship Pioneering

At Flagship Pioneering, Damask's responsibilities involve:

• Providing strategic leadership around the use of data and technology within Flagship and across its portfolio
• Overseeing cloud and scientific computing, architecture, engineering, data management, automated operations, and governance1

Education

John Damask holds a B.A. in Musicology from New York University.1

Recent Activities

Damask remains active in his field, participating in industry events and initiatives:

• He attended the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Life Science Symposium in Boston in May 2024.4
• In June 2024, he was involved in Flagship Pioneering's first AI Engineering Hackathon, hosted in collaboration with AWS.5
• As of September 2024, Damask's team at Flagship Pioneering was expanding, with openings for Director/Senior Director of Digital Science Solutions.3

John Damask's LinkedIn username is johndamask, where he describes himself as someone who loves "to create lasting value from scratch and build exciting, healthy" teams.2