Biodiversity Meets Data

Niels is a Programme Manager Biodiversity Informatics at Naturalis. He holds an MSc in tropical ecology and taxonomy, and a PhD in biodiversity informatics and ecological modelling. As BMD coordinator, he brings all his skills to make biodiversity monitoring tools and analysis pipelines that contribute to the conservation and mainstreaming of biodiversity in Europe available to the wider landscape of stakeholder communities, including natural resource managers and policy makers.

Teresa is the Project Manager of BMD. She holds a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Neuroscience. In her role, she coordinates project activities across partners, oversees timely technical and financial reporting, and ensures compliance with contractual obligations to the European Commission. Through her work, she supports the effective implementation of BMD and contributes to the successful delivery of its objectives.

Sharif is a Data and Systems Architect at Naturalis, specialising in data architecture and system design with strong interests in sustainable research infrastructure design and operation, FAIR and open science. He holds a BSc in Math and Computer Science and a Ph.D in Sociology.

Jose Alonso is a Senior Communications Officer at Naturalis. He leads the communications of DiSSCo RI and the Biodiversity Genomics Europe project.

Ayco Holleman is a senior Java Developer at Naturalis.

Kasia works as a Community and Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Naturalis Biodiversity Center. She works especially with the European DNA barcoding community, and is involved in BMD’s Work Package 1 – Stakeholder/user engagement & user needs mapping.

Khadija is the Product Owner of the AI team, which is dedicated to scaling up the analysis of biodiversity data. The team trains and provides advanced AI models focused on automated species identification and detection. Khadija also drives the development of the ARISE DSI portal that makes these models accessible across the EU via BMD. This platform enables users to easily upload sensor data and leverage a diverse repository of AI models.

Emma co-leads the Nature-Based Solutions research group at RBGE. Emma’s research addresses fundamental challenges to human society through plant functional ecology, socio-ecological systems and nature-based solutions frameworks. Emma has a strong interest in knowledge exchange and is committed to participatory research design, with a special emphasis on under-served communities. 

Chris is lead for Conservation Science in RBGE’s science division. His research is targeted to practical actions at habitat-scale, that can protect against biodiversity loss under global change. He works with stakeholders across sectors, from Government and its agencies, through to NGOs. 

Pete’s research focuses on understanding and conserving plant biodiversity. He has a particular focus on using DNA and genomic science to study the natural world. Other interests include the science of species reintroductions, understanding pest and pathogen threats to the natural environment, and developing approaches for the conservation of genetic diversity. A cross-cutting strand to his work is translating scientific evidence into practical guidance.

Tami is a Stakeholder Engagement Manager with a background in Environmental Social Science. Her work to date has focused on amplifying transformative change for sustainable, equitable systems and societies using qualitative and participatory social research methods. A key part of her work involves mobilising ethical dialogue practices to facilitate lasting participation in research and decision-making. 

Quentin Groom is a biodiversity informatics expert at Meise Botanic Garden, where he leads and contributes to projects that integrate plant science, data management, and conservation policy. With a background in botany and ecology, his work focuses on mobilising and analysing biodiversity data to support research and decision-making, particularly in the areas of invasive species, conservation planning, and global data infrastructures. Quentin is also active in promoting open science, developing tools and standards that enhance data interoperability across institutions.

Niels Billiet is a computational chemist with a specialisation in machine learning, currently working at Meise Botanic Garden as part of the Biodiversity Informatics team. My work focuses on the development of a datacube engine designed to integrate biodiversity occurrence data with abiotic datasets such as remote sensing information. With a strong foundation in software development, I help build tools that enable efficient, scalable data harmonisation and analysis tools. My goal is to support research that leverages complex, multidimensional environmental data to advance biodiversity science.

Within the Biodiversity Informatics team at Meise, Mathias Dillen focuses on digitisation, standardisation, and publication of biodiversity data, contributing to major European projects such as DiSSCo, BiCIKL, and TETTRiS, while also playing a key role in coordinating the data publication processes of Meise's digitised collections. Mathias has been active on tasks related to promoting semantic interoperability, applying computer vision to images of digitised specimens, biodiversity standards development and connecting to the linked open data ecosystem, in particular Wikidata. In the distant past, he was active in applied ecology, investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in forests.

Laura Abraham helps with the coordination of projects at Meise Botanic Garden, where they manage and contribute to European-funded biodiversity projects with a focus on invasive alien species (IAS), biodiversity monitoring, and science-policy integration. She has experience in organising and leading stakeholder engagement activities, including Living Labs, hackathons, workshops, and citizen science initiatives, fostering co-creation and knowledge exchange across sectors. Laura is currently involved in several EU projects, including OneSTOP, which develops improved detection, surveillance, and coordinated biosecurity strategies for invasive alien species, and B3 (Biodiversity Building Blocks for Policy), which advances biodiversity monitoring through standardised data access and tools for environmental policy. Her work also includes contributions to IAS-related initiatives, through involvement with the Belgium Scientific Council on Invasive Alien Species and citizen science like FlatwormWatch.

Louise Hendrickx is a researcher within the Bio-Informed team at Meise Botanic Garden, where she works on EU projects, including B-Cubed, OneSTOP, and TETTRIs. With a background in Pharmaceutical Sciences and an interest in One Health approaches, her work focuses on biodiversity monitoring, stakeholder engagement, and strengthening the connection between science and society through collaborative and participatory approaches. She is involved in project management, coordinates communication activities within the team, and contributes to the organisation of living labs, stakeholder engagement activities, and citizen science initiatives such as PlantAlert and bioblitzes. Through her work, she supports biodiversity data collection, knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinary collaboration to advance biodiversity research and policy across Europe.

Ingolf Kühn has a background in vegetation science, macroecology and aims to understand the impacts of Global Change on the taxonomic and functional composition across scales. His work contributed methodologically to improving spatial modelling approaches. As the leader of UFZ’s Research Unit “Ecosystems of the Future”, he oversees a variety of research topics, combining long-term field observations, experiments, and models to sustain and improve the functioning of our ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

Julian Oeser is a spatial ecologist interested in understanding spatial biodiversity patterns and their dynamics under global change. He has a background in biogeography and remote sensing. Julian’s work has focused on improving species distribution modeling approaches at multiple scales, including fine-scale habitat models built with satellite image and animal tracking data, as well as macro-ecological models integrating multiple data sources. In addition to advancing modeling methods, he is interested in applying models to gain new insights in the domains of wildlife ecology, biogeography, and macroecology.

Taimur is an Earth System Data Scientist and Remote Sensing specialist focusing on vegetation and biodiversity dynamics. His work lies at the intersection of earth science, remote sensing, and scalable computing, where he develops high-performance workflows and data infrastructures to process and integrate satellite, drone, and ground-based observations. With expertise in deep learning, sensor fusion, and geospatial analytics, he builds tools and systems that enable automated, data-driven insights into ecological processes. As a licensed UAV pilot, he combines large-scale monitoring with fine-resolution assessments, working across disciplines.

Lotte Korell is an experimental plant ecologist interested in how different global change drivers separately and interactively affect plant populations, communities and ecosystems. She is explicitly considering different factors that can modulate the effects of global change like spatial scale or the background abiotic and biotic conditions by using theory-driven ecological experiments and global synthesis of existing knowledge and data. In the future she aims to integrate experimental approaches that enable establishing causal links between global change drivers and ecological responses, and (macro)ecological data/modelling that covers larger spatiotemporal scales to develop more reliable predictions about changes in species distributions and ultimately better understand biodiversity change in the Anthropocene.

Computer engineer, with a PhD in Information Engineering at the University of Salento, Lucia Vaira is the Service Centre ICT Coordinator at LifeWatch ERIC. She has collaborated for several years with the Database and Information Systems research group of the Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Italy, where she worked on medical informatics, database modelling, data warehouses, and all aspects related to the main issues existing when dealing with data (security, quality, incompleteness, inconsistency, integrity, uncertainty, etc.). She is co-author of more than 40 publications and her research interests and activities include the definition of policies, procedures, models and technologies to be used in collecting, organising, storing and accessing (meta)data with particular attention to the harmonisation and interoperability challenges and the FAIR data management.

Ant Türkmen is Scientific Networking Officer at LifeWatch ERIC. He supports collaboration across biodiversity research communities and stakeholder networks. His work focuses on advancing e-Science services and interdisciplinary engagement.

PhD in Computer Science and Telecommunications Engineering, currently serving as Data e-Science, Blockchain and European Projects Officer (DLBO) at LifeWatch ERIC. He also holds a Master's in Executive Coaching from AECOP/EOI. He conducted part of his doctoral research at the Computer Science Department of Stanford University (California), deepening his expertise in advanced computing systems. With extensive experience across Spanish and European initiatives, his work focuses on the development and deployment of data management and telecommunications infrastructures, with particular emphasis on big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, the semantic web, and research data curation.

Eftychia holds a Master’s in Ichthyology and Aquatic Environmental Sciences from the University of Thessaly and a Ph.D. from the University of Salento, where she applied innovative molecular techniques to assess biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. Her research integrated fieldwork, laboratory analyses and data-driven approaches to explore traditional and molecular tools for understanding biodiversity changes and supporting conservation efforts. Over the years she has published several scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals and actively contributed to conferences, seminars and workshops.

She currently works as a data scientist, specializing in developing policies and strategies for the collection, organization, storage, and accessibility of (meta)data, with a strong emphasis on harmonization, interoperability challenges, and FAIR data management. She is involved in various European projects that focus on the entire data lifecycle within environmental research.

Nikol is a science communication expert at Pensoft, with a BSc in Modern languages, cultures and communication, as well as two MScs – in Communication and Information and in Digital Marketing and Communication. She manages the communication and dissemination activities of several European-funded projects. These projects focus on improving access to biodiversity data, better management of invasive alien species, supporting Natura 2000 site managers through enhanced biodiversity monitoring, and fostering a stronger research culture and reproducibility.

Stella is a science communication specialist at Pensoft, holding a Bachelor's degree in Publishing with a specialisation in Editing, and a Master's degree in Visual Communication. 

Yana is a communications specialist at Pensoft with a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Culture and a Dual Master's degree in Communication and Information Studies.

Marina is a biologist-ecologist from Zagreb (Croatia), with primary experience in flora, vegetation and habitats. Although she still regularly stops to admire and smell the flowers, she has since moved on to invasive alien species, ecosystems and services they provide us.

Communicative and approachable, she excels in developing and implementing various workshops – whether it is teaching plants and habitats to kids and young adults, sharing knowledge and experience on a certain subject or leading participatory stakeholder workshops.

Marina is curious and creative, and a firm believer in lifelong learning. She always finds time for some good old problem-solving, exploring the emerging concepts in nature conservation and trying out new hobbies.

Wojciech is an experienced, highly qualified ecologist from Poland with 19 years of practical experience in nature conservation in various sectors. He has proven professional experience in several positions in very diverse multi-stakeholder projects: starting from field research technician, GIS technician and data analyst, independent researcher, head of the scientific department, large-scale project manager, national coordinator of natural habitats monitoring scheme, international expert and finally – independent ecological consultant and expert in nature conservation for WWF. At Eurosite, he fulfils the role of Project Officer.

Mónica is a Behavioural Ecologist from Portugal with broad experience in the Environmental sector. She started out in several small grass-roots conservation NGOs in Portugal, South Africa, and Greece focusing on biodiversity monitoring, management planning, and addressing the human dimensions of human-wildlife coexistence. She settled in the Netherlands where she’s worked on projects in education innovation, monitoring urban wildlife, youth involvement, and has recently taken an interest in the funding of biodiversity action (and impact), mainly through the EU LIFE Programme. She is now working as a Project Officer at Eurosite on the implementation of several EU funded projects, facilitates the Nature Based Solutions Working Group, and represents Eurosite in several EU fora. 

Urmas Kõljalg is an Estonian biologist , professor at the University of Tartu and director of the University of Tartu Museum of Natural History. 

Photo credit: Andres Tennus/University of Tartu – University of Tartu

Kessy Abarenkov is an Associate Professor of Biodiversity Informatics at the University of Tartu Natural History Museum. She specialises in biodiversity informatics, database and system development for biological data, and the development of tools that support the use and communication of DNA barcodes for species identification. She has over 15 years of experience in developing platforms for biological data management and analysis, including workflows and tools for managing and analysing environmental DNA (eDNA) data.

Filipp Ivanov is a Full Stack and AI Developer in the Biodiversity Informatics Workgroup at the University of Tartu Natural History Museum, with over a decade of experience. He specialises in developing advanced software solutions, with expertise in both front-end and back-end development, as well as in AI-powered tools, particularly within biodiversity-related projects.

Spiros Papakostas is an Assistant Professor of Microbial and Molecular Ecology, specialising in the application of bioinformatic methods to address a wide range of biological questions, from molecular systematics and biodiversity to systems biology and ecosystem functioning. He has over 20 years of experience in molecular biology, genomics, and computational analysis, with a strong track record of interdisciplinary research, international collaborations, and contributions to large-scale biodiversity and environmental monitoring initiatives.

Ioannis Kavakiotis is a postdoctoral research associate at the School of Science and Technology, IHU. His research focuses on the development and application of Machine Learning and Data Mining methods tailored for biological and biomedical data, with particular interest in predictive modelling, pattern recognition, and integrative analysis of heterogeneous datasets. He has contributed to several EU- and nationally funded (Greek) projects, collaborating with interdisciplinary teams to address challenges in health informatics, bioinformatics, and computational biology.

Peter Haase is a Professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Head of Department at Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt. He has over 25 years of experience in ecological long-term monitoring and Nature Conservation Research. His research has focused on biodiversity dynamics and ecology of macroinvertebrates in European flowing waters.

Johannes Peterseil is leading the team on Ecosystem Research and Environmental Information dealing with the long-term observations in mountain forests and supporting environmental data provision on national scale. He holds a PhD in ecology from the University of Vienna with special focus on landscape ecology. His main focus currently is on the FAIR provision of long-term observation data on European and national scale. He is involved in a number of European scale projects dealing with the implementation of the eLTER RI and the underlying cyberinfrastructure.

Christoph Wohner (Applied Geoinformatics, University of Salzburg) is a member of the Ecosystem Research and Environmental Information team. He has been working at the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) as an IT developer in the department since 2015. He has contributed to several research projects implementing information technologies in the field of long-term ecological research (e.g., eLTER (H2020), ECOPOTENTIAL (H2020), eLTER PLUS (H2020), eLTER PPP (H2020)) as well as in the field of data infrastructures (e.g., ENVRI (FP7), EUDAT (FP7), EUDAT2000 (H2020), ENVRI-FAIR (H2020), e-Shape (H2020)) and Digital Twin for Biodiversity (BioDT). He is a member of the information management teams of LTER Europe and ILTER and is the system architect and developer of DEIMS-SDR.

Sebastian Niedhas been working at the Environment Agency Austria since 2024 and has previously studied Mathematics in Business and Economy (M.Sc., Mannheim), Geography (B.Sc., Göttingen), and Ecology & Biodiversity (M.Sc., Innsbruck). He is a member of the team Ecosystem Research and Environmental Information and is responsible for the long-term ecosystem monitoring and ecology at the long-term monitoring site Zöbelboden. His focus is on the statistical evaluation and provision of ecosystem data.

Lisa Reiss is an ecologist with a focus on insect monitoring and plant-arthropod interactions. She has a background in biogeography and is proficient in collecting and processing biotic data using both traditional methods and eDNA metabarcoding. Her areas of expertise further include science communication and teaching, as well as project management and administration of conservation projects. Since July 2025, she has been working as an environmental expert at the Environmental Agency Austria.

Alessandro Oggioni is a researcher at the CNR - Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (CNR - IREA) in Milan. After a PhD in ecology focused on studying the temporal evolution of phytoplankton phenology, he continued his scientific work by curating long-term data series on biodiversity and ecology, particularly within the emerging Research Infrastructure dedicated to Long-Term Ecological Research, eLTER-RI. His research topics include semantics and Linked Open Data (LOD), FAIRness, and reproducible science especially proposing and developing R packages and Shiny applications. He is actively involved in data management, including aspects related to Citizen Science, and is a founding member and member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Citizen Science Association (CSI ETS).

Caterina Bergami is a researcher at the Institute of Marine Science (ISMAR) with a PhD in Earth Science and a Master's degree in Environmental Marine Sciences. Her research background focuses on micropaleontology and the biogeochemistry of foraminifera, with applications in paleoceanographic reconstructions. Her current work spans three main areas: (i) implementation and management of marine ecological observatories (ii) data management and semantic interoperability within eLTER-RI, and (iii) public engagement and open science. She coordinated the scientific secretariat and the Communication Working Group of LTER-Italy and she is now part of the National Coordination Committee of the Italian Joint Research Unit eLTER-IT. She is a founding member and member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Citizen Science Association (CSI ETS).

Mauro Bastianini is a senior technologist at the Institute of Marine Science (ISMAR),  PhD in Marine Sciences (2006) at  Università Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy). He has done research work for more than 25 years in biological oceanography of pelagic, coastal and lagoon environments. His research interests currently are the phenology of phytoplankton communities. In recent years, he has been coordinating research activities in the oceanographic tower “Aqua Alta”. 

Emanuele Organelli is a biological oceanographer with expertise in the application of marine optics to the study of the ocean carbon cycle, awarded by the international Ocean Optics community in 2018. His main research activities focus on studying phytoplankton diversity, particle composition and dissolved organic matter dynamics from in situ and space-based measurements, from regional to global scales at seasonal and interannual timescales. He applies multi-platform observational approaches, including ocean colour satellite and in situ measurements from oceanographic cruises, fixed mooring buoys, and autonomous robotic Biogeochemical-Argo floats. He is strongly involved in the implementation of the global BGC-Argo array, as well as in the development and validation of quality control protocols for the acquired bio-optical variables.

Robert Waterhouse is the Director of the Environmental Bioinformatics Group at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. His research has focused on comparative evolutionary genomics of arthropod biodiversity, with the group’s activities directed towards building capacities in coordinating biodata resources and developing data science tools and services that contribute to planetary preservation and restoration.

Chiara Bortoluzzi is the Data Manager of the Environmental Bioinformatics Group at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. She is a computational biologist with a strong background in applying next-generation sequencing technologies to biodiversity conservation.

Chiara holds a Ph.D. in Animal Breeding and Genomics from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and has pursued two postdoctoral appointments, one at the University of Cambridge (UK) and another at ETH Zürich (Switzerland).

She currently serves as Data Manager for two EU-funded projects, Biodiversity Meets Data (BMD) and Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE), contributing her expertise in data management and genomic analysis to support large-scale biodiversity research initiatives.

Olivier Martin is a full-stack software developer within the Vital-IT group at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. He holds a Master's degree in Biology as well as a Master's degree in Bioinformatics. His professional experience encompasses a broad range of research projects, both short- and long-term in scope, involving human and non-human subjects.

Daniele Silvestro is a computational biologist at ETH Zurich. His research focuses on the development of new models and software with applications in evolutionary biology and conservation of biodiversity. Most recently, he has developed new methods powered by artificial intelligence to optimise spatial planning in conservation and restoration programs, focusing on the protection of biodiversity and the potential benefits for climate through carbon sequestration.