About

Quentin Groom is a botanist and biodiversity informatics specialist. His work focuses on applying data science and information systems to biodiversity research and conservation, particularly in the areas of invasive species monitoring and taxonomy. Quentin has contributed to numerous national and international initiatives, and is committed to enhancing the accessibility and interoperability of biodiversity data. He has a background in plant ecology and systematics, and combines scientific expertise with a passion for digital innovation in biodiversity science.

Louise Hendrickx is a researcher at Meise Botanic Garden, where she works within the Bio-Informed Team. She contributes to several Horizon Europe projects, with a focus on science communication, project coordination, and connecting biodiversity research with wider societal challenges. With a background in pharmaceutical sciences (PhD, KU Leuven), she is particularly interested in the intersections between biodiversity and human health, and in fostering collaborations that support both ecosystem resilience and wellbeing.

Sofie Meeus is a research scientist at Meise Botanic Garden in Belgium, where she leads and contributes to citizen science, biodiversity informatics, and ecological outreach projects. With a background in evolutionary biology and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Leuven, she has coordinated several bioblitzes and other public engagement initiatives, including #HOMEsafari and KIKS. Her work focuses on bridging science and society through collaborative research, open data, and participatory monitoring of biodiversity. She also co-chairs the European Citizen Science Association’s working group on Green Spaces and Citizen Science, and leads the work package in OneSTOP  on social and policy challenges of managing invasive alien species.

Simon Reynaert is a solution-oriented ecologist studying interactions between people and nature from a holistic perspective. Currently, he works as a biodiversity informatics researcher at Meise Botanic garden as part of the Bio-Informed team. His main responsibility revolves around the iEcology task within the OneSTOP project, where repeatable workflows aggregate secondary data from a variety of internet platforms, scan these data for invasive alien species observations and evaluate their utility for incorporation in early detection systems.   

Laura Abraham has a background in Evolution and Behaviour Biology and works as a biodiversity informatics researcher at Meise Botanic Garden, as part of the Bio-Informed team. Her work focuses on digital innovation in biodiversity data and policy support. She has contributed to projects such as DiSSCo Flanders and TETTRIs, and is currently involved in several Horizon Europe projects, including B-Cubed (B3), OneSTOP, and a risk assessment study on invasive alien species. She is also active in citizen science initiatives like DoeDat and FlatwormWatch, promoting public engagement in biodiversity monitoring. Laura is involved in the COST Action SMILES, which support the resilience of small and medium islands by enhancing ecosystem services. She currently works on the OneSTOP Living Labs in Belgium, which co-create innovative IAS detection and monitoring tools with local stakeholders.

Helen Roy is a principal scientist — ecologist — at UKCEH and Professor in Ecology at the University of Exeter. She leads collaborations to deliver high impact research to understand and predict the effects of biological invasions on biodiversity and ecosystem function. Her research on biological invasions has gained her international recognition both through informing policy and advancing science including as co-chair of the IPBES thematic assessment on Invasive Alien Species their Control.

Helen is passionate about science communication and engaging people with biodiversity science. Helen works within the Biological Records Centre to develop zoological monitoring and research in collaboration with the volunteer wildlife recording community across the UK.

Michael Pocock is an ecologist interested in the interactions of nature – people – data, especially researching biodiversity change through ‘citizen science’. He has broad experience of citizen science and participatory monitoring: running projects, innovating, building the evidence base for excellence, and using the data for ecological research. He takes a participant-focussed approach to developing citizen science including using co-design. At UKCEH, he works within the Biological Records Centre that has 60 year history of supporting naturalists making records helping to understand changes in biodiversity. 

Mariana Murakami is part of the ecological modelling team in OneSTOP, responsible for developing and testing predictive models that assess the establishment potential of non-native species. Their role helps translate ecological data into actionable insights for policy and management.

Lori Lawson Handley is a molecular ecologist in the Aquatic Ecosystems Group at UKCEH. Lori’s research focuses on the application of environmental DNA (eDNA) for biodiversity monitoring, with a particular interest in early detection, spread and impact of Invasive Alien Species. Within OneSTOP, Lori leads Task 2.2, which focuses on the detection of IAS with airborne eDNA.

Tom August is a computational ecologist who works to develop and deploy technology to support biodiversity monitoring. In OneSTOP is developing applications of large language models (LLMs) to support the production of EICAT assessments and reporting to land managers.

Lauren Cook is a molecular ecologist specialising in environmental DNA (eDNA) and its application in biodiversity monitoring and policy. Alongside her research, Lauren is an award-winning artist who combines science and creativity through science communication. In OneSTOP, she will be helping to detect and identify invasive species by analysing eDNA from air samples, while also supporting communications outputs.

Simon Rolph uses data science methods to improve biodiversity data collection and analysis, supporting evidence-based environmental decisions. His work develops adaptive sampling approaches to guide citizen scientists toward priority data gaps. He also studies how digital tools, such as apps and targeted messaging, can nudge recording behaviours to meet critical data needs.

Joana Vicente is a group leader and contracted researcher at BIOPOLIS CIBIO-InBIO, where she leads the research project ALIEN-SMART – Integrating biological invasions, human well-being, and sustainability to improve environmental policy and management. She was among the selected authors contributing to the IPBES Invasive Alien Species Assessment – Thematic assessment of invasive alien species and their control. Her expertise lies in both fundamental and applied research in invasion science, with a focus on ecological modelling of invasive alien species’ geographic patterns, landscape ecology, Nature’s Contributions to People, and environmental change. She applies integrative approaches to invasion processes and their societally relevant impacts, aiming to enhance the policy and management relevance of state-of-the-art research in invasion science. In 2021, she founded the research group InvasionS – Invasion Science, at BIOPOLIS-CIBIO / InBIO, which she continues to lead.

Cândida Gomes Vale is an ecologist and data analyst with research interests in biogeography, biodiversity conservation, vulnerability assessments, and ecological modeling. She holds a Ph.D. (2016) and has since developed a strong research track record in both arid and marine environments. In 2021, she completed postgraduate training in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, further strengthening her ability to work with complex and large datasets.

Her career encompasses extensive fieldwork in challenging environments, including the Sahara Desert and the Cape Verde Islands. She is committed to applying her expertise in ecological research and data analysis to address the impacts of climate change and the spread of invasive species, to contribute to biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.

João Gonçalves is a broad-spectrum ecologist working on integrative approaches to investigate and monitor biodiversity patterns and spatiotemporal dynamics across multiple levels, scales, and facets (composition, structure, and function). His research explores innovative ways of combining satellite-based Earth observations, ecological models, and in situ data to analyse ecosystem functions and their links to ecological processes, species distributions and diversity, functional connectivity, wildfire disturbances and post-fire recovery, as well as systems resilience.

Through this work, he aims to contribute to the development of next-generation biodiversity monitoring systems, fostering more effective strategies for a better and safer Earth.

Eva Malta-Pinto is currently pursuing a PhD in biodiversity, where she studies biological invasions through the lens of dynamic social-ecological systems. Her research interests follow two main paths. The first is theory and models, aimed at advancing fundamental understanding by conceptualizing and testing the dynamics and relationships within complex systems. The second is society, policy, and governance, where she explores societal responses to these systems, seeking to bridge the gap between scientific insights and actionable management strategies.

César Capinha is a researcher working on biogeography, biological invasions, and predictive modelling. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Lisbon and a researcher at the Centre for Geographic Studies. His main research interests revolve around understanding the biogeographical changes caused by human-mediated dispersal of species, often from a global perspective. He is also very interested in the spatial and temporal modelling of ecological and biological phenomena relevant to conservation, biodiversity monitoring and epidemiology. He usually tackles these topics using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and a range of data sources—from small to big data—including unstructured data and citizen science data.

Joana Ribeiro is a biologist with a PhD in Tropical Ecology. After earning my MSc degree in Conservation Biology, she was awarded a PhD scholarship and decided to go to Brazil and investigate how anuran communities from an intensively explored agricultural area are altered by anthropogenic activities, using an integrative approach.  After defending her PhD thesis, she started working as a post-doc research assistant within project BIRDTRADE, exploring the social demands motivating the international bird market, and investigating the socioeconomic and ecological consequences of bird trade. Her main interests lie in ecology, conservation biology, functional ecology, extinction risk assessment, ecosystem services, invasion biology, and global changes. She is particularly interested in multidisciplinary integrative projects, that holistically approach complex problems, involving multiple collaborations, competencies, and perspectives. Overall, she is interested in science as a whole, including scientific research, education, outreach, and journalism.

Luís Reino is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO-InBIO) of the University of Porto (Portugal), where he currently holds a FCT Post-doc grant. After completing his graduation at the Technical University of Lisbon (1994-2000), he worked as a researcher and environmental consultant at the private company ERENA, SA (1999-2004). Thereafter, he got an FCT grant to complete his PhD in Forestry Sciences (2004-2010) at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia. After completing his FCT grant, he returned to ERENA (2008-2010) before he started the current position in CIBIO-InBIO. His main research interests are in the area of biodiversity conservation in human-dominated landscapes, particularly in agricultural and forest systems, with a special focus on farmland ecology, habitat fragmentation of farmland habitats, and invasion ecology. 

Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University. She is a plant ecologist with a background in vegetation science and nature conservation. Her research projects focus on the prevention, management and impacts of biological invasions for nature conservation, horticulture and agriculture. Katharina collaborated as a lead author in the IPBES Assessment of invasive alien species, and she coordinates the Plant Alert citizen science project in collaboration with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. 

https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/katharina-dehnen-schmutz

Helen Bayliss is a research fellow working on the OneSTOP project at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University.  She is an ecology researcher specialising in biological invasions and evidence-based conservation, and is very interested in how technology can be used for species monitoring and recording.

https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/helen-bayliss 

Sian Green is a research fellow working on the OneSTOP project at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University.  She is an ecologist with an interest in interdisciplinary work for public engagement, wildlife monitoring, and conservation, with particular expertise in the use of camera traps for mammal monitoring.   

https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/sian-green

Alex Franklin is Professor of Social Sustainability Science at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University.  Her research explores collaborative and relational forms of environmental action and care, with a particular focus on situated know-how and more-than-human relations. This includes, for example, exploring across a range of contexts and scales: how differing ways of knowing, understanding and practicing environmental care are brought together through place-based initiatives; and, how to improve societal 'response-ability' towards the causes and challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.

https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/alex-franklin 

Lien Reyserhove is an ecologist with a strong passion for open science and FAIR data. She currently works as a data steward for the Open Science Lab for Biodiversity at the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Her current focus is on reproducible science, data stewardship, developing guidelines to promote FAIR data, data publication on GBIF, and citizen science projects with a focus on introduced species. She is involved in several national and international projects, including the Flemish Open Science Board (FOSB), TrIAS, LIFE RIPARIAS, and AlienCSI.

Tim started in 2000 as a landscape ecologist at the Institute for Nature Conservation, working on ecological networks. He then initiated work on invasive species at the institute. Nowadays, Tim coordinates research on invasive species and is very active in international projects focused on sustainable control, surveillance and early warning systems, citizen science, horizon scanning and risk assessment, impact research, and human dimensions. His portfolio includes many international projects, such as LIFE, Interreg, and Horizon projects, as well as assignments for the European Commission and IUCN. Since 2024, Tim has also been part of the INBO management team. He oversees the teams Species Diversity, Open Science Lab for Biodiversity and Wildlife Management & Invasive Species.

Soria Delva is an ecologist with expertise in the field of global change biology. Her earlier work focused on the response of a marine species to climate warming, with an emphasis on local adaptation, acclimatization, and range shifts. Currently, she works as a research software engineer within the Wildlife management and Invasive Species (FIS) Team at the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Her work centres on maintaining and enhancing data flows for R Shiny applications and developing tools to assess the geographic distributions of invasive species under various climate scenarios. She has contributed to data analyses for an EU-wide Horizon Scanning exercise and supports multiple projects within the FIS team that require advanced data analysis to project the spread of invasive species.

Ana Novoa is a researcher at the EEZA-CSIC (Spain) and IBOT-CAS (Czech Republic). Her research focuses on the ecology, introduction, impacts, and management of invasive plants worldwide. She is also engaged in projects that explore the human and social dimensions of biological invasions, aiming to build a more comprehensive understanding of these complex phenomena. She participates in the editorial board of three scientific journals (Biological Invasions, Journal of Ecology and Management of Biological Invasions) and she is the co-Editor-in-Chief of NeoBiota. She is a member of a variety of international expert groups, including her role as Secretary of the European Group on Biological Invasions (NEOBIOTA). 

Pavel Pipek is a researcher at the IBOT-CAS and at the Faculty of Science, Charles University (both in the Czech Republic). His research encompasses animal behaviour, citizen-science, biological invasions, including their history, and recently, iEcology and Conservation Culturomics. Together with Ana, Loreto & Petr, he is involved in projects that explore the human and social dimensions of biological invasions. He is an associate editor for the journal Biological Invasions and technical editor in Preslia, the journal of the Czech Botanical Society.

Petr Pyšek is a senior research scientist and Head of the Department of Invasion Ecology at the Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Professor of Ecology at Charles University in Prague. His research interests cover a broad range of issues related to biological invasions, including the role of macroecological drivers and their context dependence, global biogeography of alien floras, mechanisms of species invasiveness, habitat invasibility, conceptualization of invasion process, and impact of alien species. He has published over 500 papers in journals registered at Web of Science that have received over 60,000 citations. Since 2014, he has been regularly listed among the Highly Cited Researchers in Environment and Ecology (Clarivate Web of Science). In the last decade, he co-founded the GloNAF (Global Naturalized Alien Floras) database that allowed for revisiting and testing many invasion hypotheses, and recently he also contributed to the IPBES report on biological invasions. Since 1999, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Preslia, the journal of the Czech Botanical Society, and in 2017, he founded the Alien Floras and Faunas section of the journal Biological Invasions.

María Loreto is an associated researcher at the Department of Invasion Ecology, IBOT-CAS (Czech Republic). Her research interests include conservation science, eco-evolutionary dynamics, social-ecological aspects of biological invasions and macroecology of plant invasions. She is an associate editor for the journal Biological Invasions and contributed as a fellow to the IPBES Assessment of Invasive Alien Species and their Control.

His primary research focus is on developing solutions to support biosecurity to prevent or mitigate biological invasions by pests, weeds, and pathogens. As well as building fundamental ecological and epidemiological knowledge of invasive alien species, his research also includes wider assessments of biological invasions and increasingly the importance of human perspectives, such as the role of trade and wealth creation on invasion rates as well as the importance of appreciating the non-market costs of alien species impacts. Internationally, he was a coordinating lead-author on the Invasive Alien Species Assessment undertaken by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.  Nationally, he has served for over six years on the NZ Biosecurity Ministerial Advisory Committee, and regionally, he sits on the Environment Canterbury Biosecurity Advisory Group and the Canterbury-Aoraki Conservation Board. He was appointed as a Director of the QEII National Trust and serves on the Zespri Biosecurity Advisory Group. Examples of recent projects include those examining the unifying topics underpinning human, animal, plant, and environmental health, including the role of citizen science as well as the socioecological drivers of increasing antimicrobial and pesticide resistance worldwide.

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.

Nadya is a science communication expert at Pensoft, holding a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations. She is pursuing a Master's Degree in Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer, with a focus on open science, as well as a Master's Degree in Law. 

Sabrina Kumschick is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University. She has been working closely with policy makers at the local, national and global level, and with NGOs such as the IUCN, to improve the management of biological invasions and work towards integrated governance. She has developed globally, nationally and locally relevant frameworks for the management of biological invasions. Sabrina is the Chair of the IUCN EICAT Authority.

Bernd Lenzner is a senior scientist at the University of Vienna and PI within OneSTOP. Bernd is fascinated by biodiversity and how we as humans interact with nature. As a macroecologist, he focuses on large-scale patterns and changes of biodiversity in the Anthropocene and particularly within the nature-society-policy nexus. His research aims at understanding how biodiversity and biocultural diversity is organized across space and time and how humans shape these patterns.

Lisa is a post-doc in the OneSTOP project. Her work lies at the interface of invasion science and conservation biology: she's interested in large-scale biodiversity patterns, drivers of biodiversity loss, and protected areas. She is actively involved in the organization of scientific conferences (especially for early-career researchers), in DEIJ activities and awareness in academia, and she is the vice-president of the Society for Conservation Biology Italian Chapter.

Franz Essl is a professor and biodiversity researcher at the Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on biological invasions, global change, and conservation science. Franz Essl is a member of the executive team of the Austrian Biodiversity Council, and he is president of the Neobiota Organization. Franz Essl was named "Scientist of the Year" in Austria by the Club of Science Journalists in 2022.

Tamara Kovács graduated in nature conservation engineering and has a keen interest in urban ecosystem services and biodiversity. She contributed to projects that co-created urban biodiversity with broad stakeholder engagement and assessed ecosystem services along highways and in forest and grassland ecosystems.

Ágnes Zólyomi has degrees in geography and environmental policy, and is currently pursuing research in biodiversity prioritisation and behaviour sciences. As an expert of the European Commission and IPBES, she has worked on ecosystem services, green infrastructure and nature-based solutions, and coordinated several EU projects. Her key expertise is related to qualitative ecosystem services evaluation, environmental policies and policy impact assessments.

Marina Golivets is a postdoctoral researcher in the UFZ’s Department of Community Ecology. She is a plant and invasion ecologist with a background in ecology, forestry, and horticulture, and a strong emphasis on quantitative data synthesis. Her research spans multiple scales—from studying biotic interactions involving alien plants, to identifying large-scale patterns and drivers of plant invasions, and projecting how plant invasions may unfold in the future.

Anna Poimala is a forest ecologist specialising in forest pathology at the Natural Resources Institute Finland. Her research focuses on ecology, introduction, impacts, and management of invasive plant and forest pathogens, as well as assessing the potential risks they pose to Finnish ecosystems. She is also engaged in projects developing novel eDNA-based detection methods and innovative strategies for managing both introduced and native plant pathogens. 

Miia Jauni is a research scientist at Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). She is an agroecologist specialised in biological invasions and plant ecology. Her research focuses on the ecology, monitoring, prevention and management of invasive alien species. She also works with the implementation of EU and national IAS regulations and is interested in operating in science-policy interfaces. 

Heidi Blom is an environmental expert with an interdisciplinary educational background who works with invasive alien species (IAS) at Natural Resources Institute Finland. She is involved in developing and implementing various solutions, control measures, and communication related to IAS. In addition, she handles governmental responsibilities related to IAS.

Eeva Vainio is research professor of forest health in Natural Resources Institute Finland. A central topic in her research is the development of sustainable solutions for controlling soilborne and root-associated fungal and oomycete pathogens of forest trees. Her research also addresses factors affecting the spread and population dynamics of indigenous and invasive forest pathogens and community dynamics of tree-inhabiting fungi.

Markus Melin works as a Research Scientist focusing on pest insects of forests. He also works as Research Manager with focus on damage agents, their management and effects on ecosystems. Currently, his projects deal with issues related to forest disturbances and their effects on forest ecosystems. 

Nicolas Noé is a software developer with over 15 years of experience in biodiversity and conservation projects. He has strong expertise with GBIF, has developed early warning systems to combat invasive species, and regularly supports training and capacity-building initiatives. Nicolas combines technical skill with a passion for nature, applying innovative solutions to support scientific research and environmental initiatives.