CENTRE FOR BIODIVERSITY GENOMICS - Key Persons
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- Software Engineer - Informatics
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- Software Engineer - Informatics
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- Chairman of the Board
- President and Vice - Chancellor of the University of Windsor
Alan Wildeman served for ten years as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Windsor until his retirement in 2018. He has had experience in governance, management, planning, and communication, and a long history of working with multiple stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
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- Chief Operating Officer / Program Director BIOSCAN
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- Liber Ero Chair
- Professor & Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology / McGill University
Andrew Gonzalez is Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology, co-Chair (elect) for GEO BON, and Founding Director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science. Gonzalez obtained a BSc in Zoology (Hons.) in 1994 at the University of Nottingham, where he did undergraduate research on pollinator behaviour in honey bees, and the effects of habitat fragmentation and corridors on species diversity.
An overarching theme of Dr. Ali's research is studying complex systems in high dimensional settings, but the specific projects are quite diverse. Her approach to all of these problems is by first considering the associated data generating mechanism and relating it to a graphical Markov model.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Systems Administrator - Informatics
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- Research Technician - Taxonomy
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- IT Infrastructure Lead - Informatics
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Associate - Genomics
Colette went on to work in the private sector in the technology industry in companies such as Software a Xerox Company, Apple Canada, AT&T Solutions and NCR Canada.
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- Administrative Service Assistant
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- Chief Information Officer
- Information Technology Leader
David Whittle is an Information Technology leader with over 30 years of domestic and international experience across a variety of industry verticals in the design, delivery, and operation of IT solutions and services. Whittle presently leads the IT organization at the University of Guelph where he is responsibility for defining the strategic direction and execution of IT strategies and IT Governance.
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- Member of the Management Team
- Associate Director - Analytics
Steinke has been involved in DNA barcoding research since 2005, initially focusing on DNA barcoding of fishes and analytical methods. He has a strong background in evolutionary biology, genomics, and DNA analysis as well as science education and research communication.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Professor of Conservation Biology
Dr. Daniel Janzen, DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology, University of Pennsylvania, is a tropical ecologist and biodiversity conservationist with 66 years of field experience and 545 scientific papers and books focused on the interactions of tropical animals and plants, and for the past 33 years also on their permanent in-situ conservation.
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- Chief Scientist & Executive Director - Programs
In September 2021, Dr. David Hik moved to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, as the new Chief Scientist and Executive Director of Programs at Polar Knowledge Canada. He is also a Professor of Ecology at Simon Fraser University (previously the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto).
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- Director of AI Engineering at Vector Institute
Dr. Deval Pandya is Director of AI Engineering at Vector Institute and one of the 100 Global Future Energy Leaders with the World Energy Council. He serves as a Director on the technical steering committee of Moja Global, a not-for-profit collaborative project that brings together a community of experts to develop open-source software under Linux Foundation used for country level greenhouse gas accounting from AFOLU sector.
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- Assistant Professor of Molecular Ecology at York University
Dr. Elizabeth Clare is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Ecology at York University. Elizabeth completed her PhD in Ontario and a postdoctoral fellowship at Bristol University. She held a faculty position at Queen Mary University of London from 2013-2021 before returning to Canada to join York University.
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- Professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science
Dr. M. Tamer Özsu is a University Professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where he holds a Cheriton Faculty Fellowship. He has previously served as the Director of the Cheriton School and Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Mathematics.
Edwin van Huis studied biology in Utrecht and Gainesville Florida, and business management in Rotterdam. He worked most of his professional career in the arts.
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- Member of the Management Team
- Director - Genomics
Zakharov has 15 years of research experience in molecular systematics, population genetics, and evolutionary biology. He oversees the CBG's core sequencing facility, the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (CCDB) which analyzes over 1M samples annually and serves nearly 700 research groups from the academic, government, and private sectors worldwide.
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- Research Technician - Analytics
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- Research Technician - Innovation
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Chief Data Officer
- Professor
Taylor is a Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph, a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, and Interim Research Director at the Vector Institute. As CDO, Taylor oversees the transactional data services provided by the CBG's Informatics Unit and the innovation agenda led by its data science/AI/machine learning teams.
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- Manager - Media Strategic Communications
James leads the CBG's media and communications strategy. Her team produces digital content and outreach programs to mobilize knowledge and build capacity for biodiversity science and conservation worldwide.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Chief Executive Officer / Scientific Director IBOL
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Bioinformatics Coordinator - Taxonomy
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Technician - Innovation
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- Manager - Media Strategic Communications
Jeremy deWaard Associate Director - Collections deWaard has been involved with DNA barcoding since its inception in the early 2000s. He completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Guelph, followed by his PhD at the University of British Columbia.
A Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Victoria in Canada. She received her BSc from McGill University and her MSc and PhD from Dalhousie University, all in Biology. Julia subsequently held a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, followed by a Schmidt Ocean Institute postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara.
Junko Shimura spent 14 years in the United Nations Secretariat for the Convention of Biological Diversity, as its Programme Management Officer.
Kerr oversees the alignment of research programs as they flow through the CBG's operating Units and catalyzes research activities. He earned his PhD from U of G and spent nearly a decade serving as the Toronto Zoo's Curator of Birds and Invertebrates which included management of its various conservation programs.
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Communications Research Technician - Hajibabaei Lab
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- Research Associate - Genomics
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Taxonomic Specialist, Diptera - Taxonomy
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Hajibabaei Lab
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- Data Management Lead - Informatics
Mara Lawniczak is an evolutionary geneticist with a long-standing interest in speciation and biodiversity. She is a faculty member at Sanger, and her research group is currently split between the Tree of Life Programme and the Parasites and Microbes Programme.
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- Head of the Tree of Life Programme
Mark Blaxter is Head of the Tree of Life Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK. He leads a programme that aims to generate and analyse reference genome sequences
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- Student ( M. Hajibabaei )
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- Professor and Dean for the College of Biological Science
Mazyar Fallah is a professor and Dean for the College of Biological Science at the University of Guelph. He joined the College of Biological Science as Dean in 2021, and as a professor in the Department of Human Health & Nutritional Sciences.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Imaging Facility Lead - Analytics
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- Associate Professor
- Chief Scientific Officer
- Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Guelph
Hajibabaei is an Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Guelph and a Research Professor at the CBG. He brings experience in HTS protocols for biodiversity analysis. As founder and CSO of eDNAtec, he collaborates with ocean industries and other stakeholders to advance the ecological monitoring of marine environments. As CSO, Hajibabaei oversees genomics innovation at the CBG.
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- Canada Research Chair in Ecological Genomics
Melania Cristescu is a biologist and ecologist. She is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Ecological Genomics at McGill University and the Co-Editor of Genome. Cristescu earned her BSc Honors in Biology at Ovidius University of Constanța in 1996.
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- Member of the Management Team
- Associate Director - Taxonomy
Pentinsaari has been involved in DNA barcoding since his M.Sc studies at the University of Oulu, Finland. His PhD work at Oulu focused on the utility of DNA barcodes in species discovery and identification of beetles (Coleoptera), as well as amino acid level variation in the DNA barcode region.
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- Senior Research Technician - Collections
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- Chief Operating Officer / Program Director BIOSCAN
Albert brings extensive experience in the biobanking, biotechnology, and health research sectors to the CBG. She has led complex programs at all stages of their development in both the private and public sectors.
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Senior Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Scientist / Curator of DNA Archive
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Chief Executive Officer / Scientific Director IBOL
Hebert is a Professor of Integrative Biology at Guelph and a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Biodiversity. Hebert oversees activities at the CBG and coordinates its linkages with the International Barcode of Life Consortium. Hebert first developed DNA barcoding and is the CBG's founder and Director.
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- Field Operations Lead - Collections
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- Research Scientist - Hajibabaei Lab
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Analyst - Innovation
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- Senior Data Manager - Informatics
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- Professor of Computer Science
Raymond Ng is a professor of Computer Science and Director of the University of British Columbia's Data Science Institute. He also hold a Canada Research Chair in Data Science and Analytics. His main research area for the past two decades is on data mining, with a specific focus on health informatics and text mining.
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- Associate Director for Science
Rebecca Johnson is the Associate Director for Science and Chief Scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. She is responsible for the overall leadership and administration of the museum's research and collections activities.
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- Student ( M. Hajibabaei )
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- Software Engineer - Informatics
Sarah Adamowicz's work involves combining DNA sequence data, organismal traits, information from fossil records, and comparative analytical methods. Additionally, Sarah contributes to the Barcode of Life campaign and develops approaches for using vast DNA sequence resources for broad exploratory and hypothesis-driven biodiversity science.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Student ( M. Hajibabaei )
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- Director
- Professor of Population Biology
Sir Charles Godfray is Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Population Biology at Oxford University. He has broad interests in science and the interplay of science and policy and has spent his career at Oxford University and Imperial College.
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- Research Technician - Genomics
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Data Manager - Informatics
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- Associate Director - Analytics
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- Member of the Management Team
- Director - Informatics
Ratnasingham is a bioinformatician with 17 years of experience leading innovative informatics projects in the research and commercial sectors. He is the chief architect of the BOLD (Barcode of Life Data Systems) and mBRAVE (Multiplex Barcode Research and Visualization Environment) data platforms, launched in 2005 and 2017. He designed and developed the BIN (Barcode Index Number) framework, a machine learning system to accelerate the registration of biodiversity.
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Data Management Lead - Collections
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- Director of Marketing and Communications
Theresa Ebden is the Director of Marketing and Communications programs for Accenture's global Growth & Strategy organization.
Dr. McIlwraith works with Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, Canada, to document territoriality, food and resource harvesting practices, and to identify the Indigenous rights to land. These days, this usually means an effort to understand contemporary Indigenous land use in the context of mining and logging.
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- Laboratory Technician - Genomics
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- Chairman - Associate Dean Research
Dr. Gillis's studies marine biology and is interested in the biochemical and physiological adaptations that allow animals to live under extreme environments. He completed an MSc with Dr. Jim Ballantyne looking at temperature adaptation in gill mitochondrial membranes from Arctic and temperate marine bivalves.
A professor of biosystematics and the Curator of Diptera, Hymenoptera, Arachnida and a few minor insect orders at the NTNU University Museum. His research interest includes evolution, systematics and biogeography, in particular of non-biting midges of the family Chironomidae (Diptera)
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Data Manager - Informatics
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- Software Development Lead - Informatics
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- Research Technician - Collections
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- Laboratory Technician - Hajibabaei Lab