Alberto Basset
Prof. Alberto Basset is the interim Head of the LifeWatch-ERIC Service Centre. He is full professor of Ecology at the University of Salento, with main research interests in biodiversity organisation and ecosystem functioning with a particular focus on aquatic ecosystems. Since 2015, he is the pro tempore President of the European Ecological Federation and of the Euro-Mediterranean Federation of research networks on lagoon ecosystems and is in the board of editors of different international journals. At the national level, he is the Manager of the Joint Research Unit LifeWatch-ITA, which represents the Italian LifeWatch Support Committee. He has coordinated and participated in several EU projects.
Juan Miguel González-Aranda
Dr. Juan Miguel González-Aranda: PhD. Engineer on Telecommunications, and Industrial Organization-Enterprise Management European Master. LifeWatch ERIC CTO; Spain Director. ERIC FORUM Executive Board Member (ENVRI cluster), former Chair. July 2012-June 2018: HoU Nanomaterials; e-Science Spain Science & Innovation Ministry public officer. Ministry Delegate for: GBIF" (www.gbif.org); European Commission: eIRG (www.eirg.eu); ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); Open Science (Group European Data Experts GEDEResearch Data Alliance RDA www.rdalliance.org); EOSC (www.eoscportal.eu); EuroHPC ("Sherpa", https://eurohpcju.europa.eu) establishment; support Environmental ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); related initiatives. European Structural and Investment Funds-RIS3 expert for ICT & ENV Research Infrastructures according to EU regions RIS3 & FP policies. EIT Climate Change KIC startup activities. November 2004-June 2012: Spanish Council for Scientific Research-CSIC: Technical Director at Doñana Natural Area Singular S&T Research Infrastructure; Contract Agent-Research Technologist EuroMediterranean & LAC projects. January 1998-October 2004: Researcher at University of Seville (biomechanics, digital image processing). Independent Consultant-ICT freelance Public; Private sector.
Welcome session
Christos Arvanitidis
LifeWatch ERIC CEO. PhD in Marine Biology. Former Director of Research in IMBBC, HCMR. Involved in more than 60 research and education projects, coordinated more than 7. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Editorial member in several peer-reviewed Journals and reviewer in more than 45. Member of: Board of MARS (European Network of Marine Research Institutes and Stations), Society for the Marine European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD), editorial board of the Word Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), scientific advisory council of the International Polychaete Association (IPA), ICES task group 6 working on the seafloor integrity (EU MSDF), expert pool for the UN World Ocean Assessment and member of the Scientific Council of the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Marseille.
LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative on Non-Indigenous Invasive Species
Chairperson: Alberto Basset – Service Centre Director
Andreas Petzold
Andreas is an atmospheric scientist with longstanding experience in the measurement of climate relevant aerosol optical properties across the troposphere in various environments. Today, he is heading the Research Group for Global Observation at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research – Troposphere (IEK-8) of Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. He is also member of Faculty of the Physics Department of University of Wuppertal and serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group Aerosols of the Global Atmosphere Watch programme of WMO. One of his primary tasks is the coordination of the European Research Infrastructure IAGOS, jointly with colleagues from France and the UK. As a convinced supporter of the concept of RIs, he is contributing to ENVRI and coordinates the EU Project ENVRI-FAIR which connects the cluster of ENVRIs to the European Open Science Cloud.
Interdisciplinarity in Earth System Science – The ENVRI-FAIR Mission
Juanjo Dañobeitia
Professor in Marine Geophysics at National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, and Director General of EMSO-ERIC. Former Director of Large Marine and Polar Spanish National Facilities. Over 30 years of experience in leading national and international research on Marine science and technology, including seafloor observatories. Author of >150 referred publications, Director of several PhD and MA. Working with/at different European Universities and Technological Centres (U. Barcelona, Polytechnic U. Barcelona, U. Complutense Madrid, U. Cambridge, U. Oxford (UK), U. Utrecht, GEOMAR). "Orden de Isabel la Católica" for contribution in Antarctic Research, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Orden Mérito Civil" for his exceptional contribution in Marine Science and Technology, given by King Felipe VI.
EMSO ERIC observing from the Seafloor up
Wiebe Kooistra
Dr Wiebe Kooistra (kooistra@szn.it) is research director and member of the department of integrative Marine Ecology at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples. His research focuses on the diversity and distribution of marine planktonic diatoms, making use of barcoding, metabarcoding, electron microscopy as well as culture techniques within the framework of the Long-Term Ecological Research in the Gulf of Naples. He received his PhD in marine biology at the RUG, Groningen, and carried out postdoctoral research at the AWI, Bremerhaven, and at STRI in Panama before moving to the SZN. He has been involved in the development of the EMBRC since its early beginnings and has coordinated its Italian node, the JRU-EMBRC-IT, and coordinates the Transnational Access program in the RI project ASSEMBLE Plus.
The European Marine Biological Resource Centre – ERIC
Christos Arvanitidis
LifeWatch ERIC CEO. PhD in Marine Biology. Former Director of Research in IMBBC, HCMR. Involved in more than 60 research and education projects, coordinated more than 7. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Editorial member in several peer-reviewed Journals and reviewer in more than 45. Member of: Board of MARS (European Network of Marine Research Institutes and Stations), Society for the Marine European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD), editorial board of the Word Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), scientific advisory council of the International Polychaete Association (IPA), ICES task group 6 working on the seafloor integrity (EU MSDF), expert pool for the UN World Ocean Assessment and member of the Scientific Council of the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Marseille.
Research Infrastructures collaboration: a new avenue for development and achievements
Chairperson: Matthias Obst – University of Gothenburg
Antonio José Sáenz Albanés
Antonio José Sáenz-Albanés is the ICT e-Infrastructure Operations Coordinator of LifeWatch ERIC. He received a Diploma in Engineering & Technology of Information from the University of Seville. He has 29 years of IT experience in both the private and public sectors. For ten years, he was PM of the "Centro de Gestión Avanzada" for IT-supported educational centres in Andalusia. He was CTO of a private company for ten years, responsible for all the ICT teams, managing every aspect of production and operations such as recruiting, training, strategic selection of technologies and partners, development and services methodologies, (ISO 9001:2000 using RUP-agile, ITIL, ISO 27000, CMMi). He deployed several VREs: nation-wide electric grid planning, improvement and adaptation of the biological station of Doñana to LifeWatch, and scenario-based water innovation and research laboratory. He was also Associated Lecturer in Languages & Information Systems at the University of Seville.
ARMS workflow: photographic and genetic data from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) to track NIS colonisation of European waters and monitor long-term changes of marine hard-bottom communities (scientific side).
Katrina Exter
Data scientist with a background in astrophysics, now a data manager at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Belgium. Working within several international projects with a focus on FAIR data and FAIR data systems, striving to make FAIR data management easier for everyone involved in the data chain.
ARMS workflow: photographic and genetic data from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) to track NIS colonisation of European waters and monitor long-term changes of marine hard-bottom communities (scientific side).
Dimitra Mavraki
FAIRification process for RIs: The case of the LifeWatchGreece Research Infrastructure.
Chairpersons: Klaas Deneudt – VLIZ Marine Observation Centre & Sergej Olenin – Klaipeda University
Klass Deneudt
Klaas Deneudt leads the marine observation center at VLIZ and is coordinator of the LifeWatch Belgium National Distributed Center. He is a marine biologist with more than 15 years of experience in marine biodiversity observation and data management and is former chair of the EMBRC e-infrastructure working group, a former member of the Group of Data Experts (GEDE) of the Research Data Alliance and a former member of the IODE Working Group on Chemical and Biological Data.
Sergej Olenin
Sergej is a research professor in ecology and environmental studies at Klaipeda University, Lithuania, specializing in marine biological invasion studies and benthic ecology. He was leading the EC JRC/ICES Task Group "Non-indigenous species" developing criteria and methodological standards for the Good Ecological Status descriptors for the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and coordinated development of an information system on aquatic non-indigenous and cryptogenic species – AquaNIS and online bioinvasion impact/biopollution assessment system – BINPAS. He has authored/co-authored over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and co-edited four books and international conference proceedings, including ‘Invasive aquatic species of Europe - distribution, impact and management'.
Impact of NIS on marine ecosystems: what should be considered when assessing the environmental status under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive?
Matthias Obst
I have 15 years of experience as academic researcher, infrastructure developer, project manager and entrepreneur in the marine environmental sector. During my career I have built up a broad skill set for project executions in these fields, especially with regard to strategic development, organisational, and educational aspects. My expertise connects to an extensive international network of marine/maritime actors dealing with research and technical development in the public and private sector - from shipping to marine food production and environmental protection.
Christos Arvanitidis
LifeWatch ERIC CEO. PhD in Marine Biology. Former Director of Research in IMBBC, HCMR. Involved in more than 60 research and education projects, coordinated more than 7. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Editorial member in several peer-reviewed Journals and reviewer in more than 45. Member of: Board of MARS (European Network of Marine Research Institutes and Stations), Society for the Marine European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD), editorial board of the Word Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), scientific advisory council of the International Polychaete Association (IPA), ICES task group 6 working on the seafloor integrity (EU MSDF), expert pool for the UN World Ocean Assessment and member of the Scientific Council of the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Marseille.
LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative: Impact of Non-Indigenous Invasive Species on Marine Ecosystems
Chairperson: Salvatrice Vizzini – University of Palermo
Rapporteur: Elisa Morón López – LifeWatch ERIC ICT Core
Giorgio Mancinelli
Born in Orvieto on April 22nd 1968. University degree in Natural Sciences cum Laude (1993); Ph.D. in Ecology (1998). Young research award by the Italian Society of Ecology in 2003. Researcher - sector BIO/07, Ecology - DiSTeBA, University of Salento, since January 2005. Habilitated associate professor since 2014. He taught/teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Ecology, Ecophysiology, and Community Ecology. Currently working on food webs and impacts of invasive species in aquatic habitats.
Crustaceans workflow: occurrence and stable isotope data to monitor trophic position of invasive crustaceans in marine and freshwater ecosystems and trophic changes within invaded food webs (scientific side).
Antoni Huguet-Vives
ICT engineer specialized in front-end with a background in computer graphics and animation. Antoni spends his days as a front-end architect for the LifeWatch ICT Core team where he gets the chance to integrate the work of many other ICT colleagues and translate it into user friendly interfaces. Fond of human-centred design to enhance user satisfaction, human well-being, accessibility and sustainability.
Crustaceans workflow: occurrence and stable isotope data to monitor trophic position of invasive crustaceans in marine and freshwater ecosystems and trophic changes within invaded food webs (technical side)
Paraskevi Karachle
Paraskevi Karachle is a Main Researcher in HCMR. Her main field of expertise is feeding ecology and ecomorphology of marine fishes, as well as taxonomy, distribution and biology of non-indigenous species. Recently she has also invested a big effort in interactions with stakeholders, particularly fishers, and has been involved in the study of recreational fisheries in Greece. She is member of the Ellenic Network of Alien Invasive Species development team and a representative of Greece at the East and South European Network on Invasive Alien Species. She has been involved in about 30 national and international projects. She has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, co-authored 1 book and 3 book chapters and more than 85 other publications (conference proceedings, international workshops, and technical reports).
Chairperson: Montserrat Vilà – CSIC, LifeWatch Spain
Rapporteur: Alberto Basset – LifeWatch ERIC
Ana Cristina Cardoso
Ana Cristina Cardoso is a marine biologist, with a ‘Licenciatura' (5-year university degree) in marine biology and fisheries, and a PhD in marine biology. She joined the European Commission Joint Research Centre in 1995 as a scientific officer. Since then, she has contributed and coordinated several institutional research and science-policy interface projects in the fields of freshwater and marine ecology. She has also participated in several EU-funded or other international and national research projects in these fields. She is (co)author of >90 publications (>40 in peer-reviewed international journals). Current research interests include the assessment of alien invasive species and their impacts on natural ecosystems. She was involved in EASIN conceptual design and she is responsible for its coordination.
European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN), knowledge gap observations
Mike Elliot
Mike is the Professor of Estuarine & Coastal Sciences at the University of Hull and Director of International Estuarine & Coastal Specialists Ltd. He was Director of the former Institute of Estuarine & Coastal Studies. He is marine biologist and his teaching, research, advisory and consultancy includes estuarine and marine ecology, policy, governance and management. He has co-authored/co-edited 19 books/proceedings and >300 scientific publications. He has advised on environmental matters for academia, industry, government and statutory bodies worldwide. Past-President of the international Estuarine & Coastal Sciences Association and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Estuarine, Coastal & Shelf Science, he is or has had Adjunct Professor and Research positions at the universities of Murdoch, Klaipeda, Palermo and Xiamen, and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. He was awarded Laureate of the Honorary Winberg Medal 2014 of the Russian Hydrobiological Academic Society. He is a also member of many committees linking marine science to policy.
The 10-tenets relating to Non-indigenous species – natural and social sciences
Montserrat Vilà
Prof. Montserrat Vilà got her PhD in Biological Sciences at the UAB. After a postdoc at the University of California, where she specialised in the ecology of biological invasions, she reincorporated at the Center for Ecological Research and Ecological Applications as a Scientific Officer while Professor of Ecology at UAB. In 2006, she moved to EBD-CSIC where she has been Deputy Director and Head of the Department of Integrative Ecology. She is president of NEOBIOTA, member of the Scientific Committee on Flora and Fauna for the Spanish Ministery for the Ecological Transition, the Scientific Forum of the European Regulation on Alien Invasive Species and the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Group. She is associate editor for several scientific journals and has coordinated the area on Animal and Plant Biology and Ecology for the National Research Agency. She has been member of the jury of the Margalef Prize in Ecology and many other evaluation panels. She has supervised 12 PhD theses, published >195 ISI papers (>90% Q1), >40 book chapters and edited 7 books.
Impacts of invasive alien species on Nature, Nature’s Contributions to People, Sustainable Development, and Good Quality of Life
Pablo González-Moreno
Pablo González-Moreno is Postdoc researcher at University of Cordoba (LifeWatch Spain). He is a terrestrial ecologist with more than 10 years' experience in ecological modelling of invasive species and GIS applied for nature resource management. His research focuses on understanding invasive species and pest patterns of agriculture and forest systems in relation to key natural processes. During his career he has acquired strong analytical skills in statistical modelling and GIS applied to international projects in Europe, Africa, America, and Asia. Currently, his efforts are focused on combining his experience in modelling with people's needs and engagement in order to deliver useful recommendations for forest and nature management.
The impact of agriculture and forest – Non-native Invasive Species
José Manuel Avila Castuera
He is an Environmental Scientist who specialised in Biodiversity and Conservation Biology and has a PhD in Environment and Society. He has more than ten years of experience in R&D projects across different sectors (research centre, academia and industry). At the beginning of his career, he specialised in the effect of the invasive species Phytophthora cinnamomi and climate change on agroforest system, going on to work as coordinator and manager of EU R&D projects on the application of ICT to address societal and environmental challenges. Currently, he works as Agroecology Technical Assistant in LifeWatch ERIC. He assists on R&D projects regarding agroecology topics, intending to contribute to the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe.
Socio-economic and ecological impacts of NIS: insights from agroecology
Chairperson: Julien Radoux – UCLouvain
Angela Martiradonna
Angela Martiradonna is a researcher (RTDA) at University of Bari Aldo Moro, Department of Mathematics, and she is a collaborator of the Institute for Applied Mathematics (IAC) of the CNR in Bari. She graduated cum laude in Mathematics in 2012 and got the Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the University of Bari in 2017. She is involved in european and italian projects and she also collaborates with COISPA Teconologia & Ricerca (Bari) in the field of Fishery. Her main research interests are: optimal control of invasive species, with particular attention to the case study of Ailanthus altissima in Alta Murgia National Park; soil organic carbon turnover models for land degradation neutrality; positive and linear invariant preserving numerical integrators for biochemical systems, with applications to the vibrational kinetics; fish population dynamics based on age-structured PDE models; statistical analysis of georeferenced time series.
Cristina Tarantino
Cristina Tarantino, physicist, is a researcher at CNR-IIA (National Research Council of Italy-Institute for Atmospheric Pollution Research). Since 1999, her research activity has focused on remote sensed multi-source image processing and pattern recognition problems with using neural networks, support vector machines, statistical algorithms, and expert knowledge driven approaches. The different applications analyzed concern: land cover classification, change detection, time series analysis, habitat and invasive species mapping developed in GIS environment according to the standard OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). She has worked to several international projects and is co-author of more than 30 publications on peer-review journals.
Ismael Navas-Delgado
Dr. Ismael Navas-Delgado holds an MSc degree in Computer Science (2002), and a PhD degree in Computer Science (2009). Currently, he is Assistant Professor at the University of Málaga since 2009, and has been involved in a number of national and international research projects as participant researcher. His research activity is focused on the application of database technologies to the Semantic Web, including topics such as middleware development, semantic annotation, ontology location, ontology alignment and with a wide experience in the development of bioinformatics applications. He has participated in many conferences and most of his work has been published in international journals and conferences, with more than 50 published papers.
Cristina Tarantino, Angela Martiradonna & Ismael Navas-Delgado | Ailanthus workflow: occurrence information of the invasive plant A. altissima using satellite data
Chairpersons: Alberto Basset – Service Centre Director & Arturo Ariño Plana – University of Navarra, LifeWatch Spain
Lyubomir Penev
Open science from a publisher’s view
Vincent Smith
Dr Vince Smith is a Research Leader in the Department of Life Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London. He applies digital technologies to the study of taxonomy and biodiversity, specialising in systems to share and manage natural history data. Vince coordinates a series of digital programmes across the Museum, and with partners worldwide. Examples include the Digital Collections Programme, the NHM Data Portal , and the EC funded SYNTHESYS project. Vince is editor-in-chief of the Biodiversity Data Journal , and a founding developer of the Scratchpad system, accelerating the sharing of structured biodiversity data. Vince served as an elected member of the Executive for CETAF , the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities, for six years, and played a key role in the development of DiSSCo, the Distributed System of Scientific Collections.
The many dimensions of data publishing: an institutional & editors perspective
Andrew Townsend Peterson
Stelios Katsanevakis
Stelios Katsanevakis is a Professor of marine ecology in the Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean. Before that, he worked in the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The focus of his research is on Marine Conservation, Biological Invasions and their Impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and Ecological Monitoring. He has published 167 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and his work has received >9500 citations. He is the editor-in-chief of the open-access journal BioInvasions Records, focusing on the publication of research and data papers on records of non-native species in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
BioInvasionsRecords: making NIS data open access
Quentin Groom
Quentin Groom leads the biodiversity informatics team at Meise Botanic Garden in Belgium. His work involves all aspects of biodiversity data science, such as supporting the digitization and dissemination of data and images of the Garden's collections, living and preserved. He has been actively involved in the development of biodiversity data standards with the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, notably to improve the quality and utility of data on alien and invasive species. Quentin also leads the TrIAS project on invasive species, which aims to create a full, reproducible, open, data lifecycle from data providers to policy support documentation. He also has a long-term interest in citizen science and is vice-chair of the Alien-CSI COST Action that aims to improve research, monitoring and early warning of invasive species through citizen science. When he has spare time he works on the taxonomy, evolution and phytogeography of the genus Oxalis and on various aspects of urban ecology.
Data on domesticated organisms?
Arturo Ariño Plana
Arturo H. Ariño (PhD, Marine Biology) is Professor of Ecology and Bioinformatics at the University of Navarra (UNAV) and of Environmental Sciences at UNED. Active in Biodiversity Informatics since 1982, he served as Vice-Chair of the Science Committee of GBIF. His recent research focuses on biodiversity data patterns and on fine-scale environmental stress. He is the Chair of Environmental Biology at UNAV and Science Director of its Museum of Sciences. Contact: artarip@unav.es
Chairpersons: Juan Miguel González-Aranda – Chief Technology Officer/ICT Core Director & Wim Jansen – European Commission
Juan Miguel González-Aranda
Dr. Juan Miguel González-Aranda: PhD. Engineer on Telecommunications, and Industrial Organization-Enterprise Management European Master. LifeWatch ERIC CTO; Spain Director. ERIC FORUM Executive Board Member (ENVRI cluster), former Chair. July 2012-June 2018: HoU Nanomaterials; e-Science Spain Science & Innovation Ministry public officer. Ministry Delegate for: GBIF" (www.gbif.org); European Commission: eIRG (www.eirg.eu); ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); Open Science (Group European Data Experts GEDEResearch Data Alliance RDA www.rdalliance.org); EOSC (www.eoscportal.eu); EuroHPC ("Sherpa", https://eurohpcju.europa.eu) establishment; support Environmental ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); related initiatives. European Structural and Investment Funds-RIS3 expert for ICT & ENV Research Infrastructures according to EU regions RIS3 & FP policies. EIT Climate Change KIC startup activities. November 2004-June 2012: Spanish Council for Scientific Research-CSIC: Technical Director at Doñana Natural Area Singular S&T Research Infrastructure; Contract Agent-Research Technologist EuroMediterranean & LAC projects. January 1998-October 2004: Researcher at University of Seville (biomechanics, digital image processing). Independent Consultant-ICT freelance Public; Private sector.
Wim Jansen
Wim Jansen was born in the Netherlands, and holds degrees in both Geography for Education and Urban Planning. He started his professional career at a Dutch national educational broadcasting company (RVU) where he produced several educational television programme series. After that he joined the Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement (CITO). In 1986 he was appointed as Educational Technologist at the Dutch Open University and participated in many course teams in the field of Economics, Business studies and Cultural Sciences. He designed and developed several multimedia applications. In 1991 he moved internally to the research institute of the Open university (OTEC) to do research in the design and development of Multimedia educational software. Before moving to the European Commission he participated on a part time basis in European projects for the European Association of Distance Learning Universities (EADTU). Since 1993 he is employed as principal scientific officer in the European Commission. During three consecutive Framework programmes Mr Jansen was involved in the evaluation, negotiation, management, monitoring and assessment of European R&D projects in the field of the use of technologies for Education and Training. In the beginning of 2003 he moved internally to the unit Research Infrastructure, with a specific assignment to promote, support and stimulate involvement and co-operation between (Social Science) Researchers and (High speed) Network Providers in the emerging European Research Area. He wasone of the EC officials responsible for GEANT, the multi gigabit pan-European Research and Education network of networks. In 2014 Wim became responsible for the Smart Cities research portfolio before he retired in August 2018.
Juan Miguel González-Aranda & Wim Jansen | Round Table 5: IJI e-services and disruptive technologies for NIS research
Joris Timmermans
Dr. Joris Timmermans: PhD. Engineer on multi-sensor high performance remote sensing of hydrology and ecology. LifeWatch ERIC VLIC scientific Developer. Researcher at University of Amsterdam and Leiden University. Editor for MPDI's Remote sensing Journal, committee member of NLBIF. Aug 2017 – Dec 2019, Postdoc Researcher at Leiden University, Research Consultant for University College London Consultant, Delegated PI for H2020 MULTIPLY project (www.multiply-h2020.eu/), Scientific Steering Committee for ESA's Sentinel Synergy project, Organiser for 1st Dutch Remote sensing in Ecology symposium, Sept 2015 – Sept 2017, Research Associate at University College London, Mar 2009 – 2015, Postdoc Researcher at the at the University of Twente, Organiser for REFLEX summerschool at Barrax, Spain, Co-organiser for the international Catchment-scale Hydrological Modelling & Data Assimilation (CAHMDA) symposium, Mar 2005-2009, Phd Researcher at the Institute for GeoInformation Science and Earth Observation.
Towards a synergistic remote sensing workflow for monitoring the impact of Invasive Species
Ilaria Rosati
Ilaria Rosati is a Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Technologist with the Italian National Research Council. She holds a PhD in Fundamental Ecology from the University of Salento, and a MSc in Biological Science at the University of Bologna. She has a background in biodiversity organisation, conservation and management in aquatic ecosystems. Her research focus is on e-biodiversity and she works in the field of semantic technologies for scientific data management. As a member of the LifeWatch ERIC's working group on "Metadata, Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies", she is coordinating the implementation and curation of thesauri for biodiversity and ecosystems; and she is also involved with EcoPortal, a semantic repository. Within LifeWatch ERIC, she is actively involved in the development of different metadata catalogues and related schemas. She co-organised various LifeWatch workshops and was chair of ICEI's special session "Semantics for Biodiversity" in 2018.
Nicola Fiore
Nicola Fiore is the ICT Coordinator of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre. He is Dr. Eng. Computer Science and PhD in Computer Engineering. He has 17 years of working experience in IT, in the field of the design and development of Information Systems in both the private and public sectors, and 10 years of accredited professional experience in the area of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Bioinformatics research. His research activities include the definition of common policies, models and e-infrastructure to optimise technological implementation; definition of workflows; and coordination, harmonisation, integration and interoperability of data, applications and other services. He is one of the member of the Vocabulary Services Interest Group leading the Ontology Market Place working group in the framework of the Research Data Alliance.
Ilaria Rosati & Nicola Fiore | Semantics and Ontologies-related technologies
Isabel Campos Plasencia
Isabel Campos (@isabelcp_csic) is the coordinator of EOSC-synergy (@EOSC_synergy), one of the 3 regional implementation projects of EOSC. She holds a PhD in HEP computing simulations, and has been a staff researcher at CSIC since 2008. She is the Coordinator of the Spanish distributed computing network (es-NGI), representative of Spain in the EGI Council, and coordinator of IBERGRID in Spain. As a member of the 2nd EOSC High Level Expert Group appointed by the EC, she has played an important and very active role in providing recommendations and policy baselines to support the launching of the EOSC initiative.
Integration of Thematic Services in EOSC
José F. Aldana Montes
José F. Aldana Montes has a degree and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Malaga (outstanding/cum laude). He is a Full Professor and his research activity is focused on the management, integration and analysis of data with a particular interest in the intersection of database technologies, Semantic Web, Linked Open Data and Big Data. He has participated in numerous conferences, and most of his work has been published in international journals and congresses, with over 250 articles published. He has developed many applied research and technology transfer projects, especially in fields such as Systems Biology, Translational Computing, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Electronic Commerce and Environment and Biodiversity Observation and Analytics. In recent years he has focused his transfer activity, usually in collaboration, on Biomedical research (within IBIMA), the AgriFood sector and LifeWatch ERIC.
IJI e-services and disruptive technologies for NIS research session
Lucia Vaira
Lucia Vaira is the Web Portal Officer of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre. She is a Computer Engineer and received her PhD from the University of Salento in 2016. Her research interests include (meta)data modelling, data warehouses, bioinformatics, and all aspects related to the main issues existing when dealing with data (security, quality, incompleteness, inconsistency, integrity, uncertainty, etc.). She has more than 10 years of experience in training and education for courses dealing with information systems, databases and information security. She is author of more than 30 scientific publications and serves as Program Committee member of several workshops and conferences in the Computer Science field.
Towards new user-friendly interfaces
Antoni Huguet-Vives
ICT engineer specialized in front-end with a background in computer graphics and animation. Antoni spends his days as a front-end architect for the LifeWatch ICT Core team where he gets the chance to integrate the work of many other ICT colleagues and translate it into user friendly interfaces. Fond of human-centred design to enhance user satisfaction, human well-being, accessibility and sustainability.
Antonio José Sáenz Albanés
Antonio José Sáenz-Albanés is the ICT e-Infrastructure Operations Coordinator of LifeWatch ERIC. He received a Diploma in Engineering & Technology of Information from the University of Seville. He has 29 years of IT experience in both the private and public sectors. For ten years, he was PM of the "Centro de Gestión Avanzada" for IT-supported educational centres in Andalusia. He was CTO of a private company for ten years, responsible for all the ICT teams, managing every aspect of production and operations such as recruiting, training, strategic selection of technologies and partners, development and services methodologies, (ISO 9001:2000 using RUP-agile, ITIL, ISO 27000, CMMi). He deployed several VREs: nation-wide electric grid planning, improvement and adaptation of the biological station of Doñana to LifeWatch, and scenario-based water innovation and research laboratory. He was also Associated Lecturer in Languages & Information Systems at the University of Seville.
Integration within LifeWatchERIC Tesseract VRE
Siham Tabik
Siham Tabik is researcher in the LifeWatch-Sierra Nevada Smart EcoMountains project. She received the B.Sc. degree in physics from University Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco, in 1998 and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Almería, Almería, Spain. She is currently Ramón y Cajal researcher (Tenure-Track position) at the University of Granada. Her research interests include the design of scalable algorithms and deep learning models for biodiversity conservation, global change and video-surveillance.
Plant species monitoring using Deep Learning: Three case studies
Chairperson: Christos Arvanitidis – Chief Executive Officer
Ana Filipa Filipe
Ana Filipa Filipe is an ecologist that seeks to understand how species and other components of biodiversity are distributed in time and space. Research topics have been devoted to freshwater biodiversity and the impacts resulting from climate change, dams, agriculture and exotic species. Filipa develops tools to optimize conservation and management and uses Geographic Information Systems, ecological modeling, and molecular techniques such as eDNA metabarcoding.
José F. Aldana Montes
José F. Aldana Montes has a degree and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Malaga (outstanding/cum laude). He is a Full Professor and his research activity is focused on the management, integration and analysis of data with a particular interest in the intersection of database technologies, Semantic Web, Linked Open Data and Big Data. He has participated in numerous conferences, and most of his work has been published in international journals and congresses, with over 250 articles published. He has developed many applied research and technology transfer projects, especially in fields such as Systems Biology, Translational Computing, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Electronic Commerce and Environment and Biodiversity Observation and Analytics. In recent years he has focused his transfer activity, usually in collaboration, on Biomedical research (within IBIMA), the AgriFood sector and LifeWatch ERIC.
Ana Filipa Filipe & José F. Aldana Montes | Metabarcording workflow: collecting eDNA data of freshwater fish to update national NIS databases
Mirjam Boonstra
Mirjam Boonstra is project leader on the use of eDNA for the detection of muskrat and coypu at MAD: Dutch Genomics Service & Support Provider, University of Amsterdam. This project is part of LifeMica and is done in cooperation with the Dutch Waterboards (de Stichtse Rijnlanden, Fryslân, Hunze & Aa's and Rivierenland) and the Union of Waterboards.
eDNA for the detection of muskrat & coypu
Chairperson: Alberto Basset – Service Centre Director
Julien Radoux
Julien Radoux is Postdoc researcher at the Earth and Life Institute of Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He is a bioengineer with more than 15 years experience in land cover mapping (e.g. ESA's Global Land Cover CCI project) and forest change detection. Since 2015, he has been focused on the added value of remote sensing and GIS for biodiversity monitoring in the frame of Lifewatch-BE. His research aims at the design of an integrated geographic database (based on the concept of ecotopes) to fill the gaps between remotely sensed observation and geolocated species records in ecological models. During his career, he has acquired strong analytical skills in remote sensing data analysis, statistical modelling and geographic information systems. His efforts also contributed to the quality assessment of geographic data and to the use of open source image analysis softwares (especially Orfeo Toolbox).
Heliana Teixeira
Coastal and marine benthic ecologist at CESAM and the University of Aveiro, focusing on biodiversity and environmental impacts assessment, particularly studying pressure-response relationships using ecological indicators in estuarine, coastal and marine ecosystems. She has been using the ecosystem services approach to promote society engagement on biodiversity conservation, and also studying processes and impacts of biological invasions driven by climate and anthropogenic pressures. Currently she coordinates R&D projects FITA and CREPIDULA and collaborates in PORBIOTA (LifeWatch PT node). She has participated in international WGs, providing scientific support for environmental policy implementation in Water, Marine Strategy and Nature Directives. She is part of the EU WFD ECOSTAT WG Nutrients and physical-chemical standards in support of good ecological status and also integrates the Alien CSI COST ACTION to increase understanding of alien species through citizen science. She collaborates with the LifeWatch ERIC IJI on the development of NIS VREs.
Jesús Gallardo
Nikos Minadakis
Nikos Minadakis is the chief executive officer of Advance Services, chief executive officer and co-founder of SmartUp data solutions and a member of LW ERIC ICT Core as a technical coordination consultant. He graduated from the Department of Computers Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, and holds two MScs in Computer Science, Internet Technologies and Databases. He has expertise in e-research infrastructures design and implementation, conceptual modelling, and semantic information systems implementation. He is a member of Lifewatch since 2013, has participated in multiple National and European Projects, including PHAROS photo archives platform, iMarine, BlueBRIDGE and has co-authored more than 30 scientific publications.
Julien Radoux, Heliana Teixeira, Jesús Gallardo & Nikos Minadakis | Biotope vulnerability workflow: ecosystem and habitat vulnerability mapping at national and continental scale to infer the relevance of key risk factors and intrinsic resistance/resilience components
Juan Miguel González-Aranda
Dr. Juan Miguel González-Aranda: PhD. Engineer on Telecommunications, and Industrial Organization-Enterprise Management European Master. LifeWatch ERIC CTO; Spain Director. ERIC FORUM Executive Board Member (ENVRI cluster), former Chair. July 2012-June 2018: HoU Nanomaterials; e-Science Spain Science & Innovation Ministry public officer. Ministry Delegate for: GBIF" (www.gbif.org); European Commission: eIRG (www.eirg.eu); ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); Open Science (Group European Data Experts GEDEResearch Data Alliance RDA www.rdalliance.org); EOSC (www.eoscportal.eu); EuroHPC ("Sherpa", https://eurohpcju.europa.eu) establishment; support Environmental ESFRI (www.esfri.eu); related initiatives. European Structural and Investment Funds-RIS3 expert for ICT & ENV Research Infrastructures according to EU regions RIS3 & FP policies. EIT Climate Change KIC startup activities. November 2004-June 2012: Spanish Council for Scientific Research-CSIC: Technical Director at Doñana Natural Area Singular S&T Research Infrastructure; Contract Agent-Research Technologist EuroMediterranean & LAC projects. January 1998-October 2004: Researcher at University of Seville (biomechanics, digital image processing). Independent Consultant-ICT freelance Public; Private sector.
Alberto Basset
Prof. Alberto Basset is the interim Head of the LifeWatch-ERIC Service Centre. He is full professor of Ecology at the University of Salento, with main research interests in biodiversity organisation and ecosystem functioning with a particular focus on aquatic ecosystems. Since 2015, he is the pro tempore President of the European Ecological Federation and of the Euro-Mediterranean Federation of research networks on lagoon ecosystems and is in the board of editors of different international journals. At the national level, he is the Manager of the Joint Research Unit LifeWatch-ITA, which represents the Italian LifeWatch Support Committee. He has coordinated and participated in several EU projects.
Peter H. Van Tienderen
Dr. Peter H. van Tienderen (male): leads the LifeWatch initiative in the Netherlands and is a member of the LifeWatch Executive Board. He is full professor at the University of Amsterdam and currently Dean of the Faculty of Science. His scientific interest concerns the evolution of biodiversity, and published on a wide range of topics in this field. Applied aspects concern the potential consequences of the introduction of GM crops. His involvement in the development of RI's is exemplified by, amongst others, two recent LERU papers (Challenges for Biodiversity research in Europe and Four Golden Principles for Enhancing the Quality, Access and Impact of Research Infrastructures).