Biodiversity Informatics: from Data Digitization to Intelligent Systems for Biodiversity Conservation

In this talk I will present a brief history of Biodiversity Informatics (BI) and current exciting research that is revolutionizing the way taxonomists, ecologists, and decision makers work. BI is an interdisciplinary field that was born as a result of urgent needs of global scientific digital information for decision making. It underwent several stages and is currently mature enough to explore new ways to support eScience in the biodiversity conservation realm. My historical account is based on personal experience that gave me the unique opportunity of being part of the "big bang" of BI as Director of the BI program at the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica (INBio), and then as active participant of regional and global initiatives such as GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), BHL (Biodiversity Heritage Library), and EOL (Encyclopedia of Life).

Erick Mata-Montero is currently Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR). He obtained his Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer and Information Science from the University of Oregon in 1986 and 1990, respectively. From January 2011 through July 2013, he worked at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC as the Executive Director of Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). EOL is a global initiative aimed at fulfilling Edward O. Wilson’s dream of increasing awareness and understanding of living nature through an Encyclopedia of Life that gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible and trusted digital resource. From 1995 through 2010 he was the founding Director of the Biodiversity Informatics (BI) Program at INBio, the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica. INBio's BI Program has been recognized world-wide as a pioneer effort in the use ICT's to gather, manage, synthesize and disseminate digital information about biodiversity at the species and ecosystem level. Erick has actively participated in many international BI initiatives. He was head of the Costa Rica delegation to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Governing Board for eleven years. He was also Chair of the Outreach and Capacity Building Subcommittee of GBIF for four years and Chair of its Science Committee for two years. In addition, he was the General Coordinator of the Species and Specimen Thematic Network of the Inter American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) for four years. His current research areas include: biodiversity informatics, image-based algorithms for organismal identification, three-dimensional scientific data visualization, and algorithmic graph theory.