Roderic Page is Professor of Taxonomy at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine and current chair of the GBIF Science Committee.

Tanya Abrahamse is CEO of the South African Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), a natural scientist trained in Zambia and the UK, and an experienced leader in environmental and developmental policies and processes. She played a key role in the Reconstruction and Development Programme under President Mandela’s leadership. As head of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa from 2000, Tanya sat on all key tourism bodies, led the Black Economic Empowerment process and advised on public/private partnership policy development. Since joining SANBI in 2007, Tanya has successfully restructured the organization to meet its national mandate. Recipient of the 2005 African Tourism Achiever Award, she advises national and international boards, panels and committees about development, tourism, biodiversity and leadership and was recently appointed to the UN Secretary General’s inaugural Scientific Advisory Board. 

Arturo H. Ariño is Professor of Ecology at the University of Navarra (UNAV), where he teaches bioinformatics, and Professor of Environmental Sciences at the National Distance Education University. He currently heads both the Department of Environmental Biology and the Museum of Sciences at UNAV, and serves as vice-chair of the GBIF Science Committee. Arturo’s current research interest focuses on the analysis of biodiversity data at various scales, especially as related to conservation and management. Arturo serves as project evaluator for the European Commission and is a member of Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) and the Research Data Alliance (RDA), among others.

Lucas Joppa is a conservation biologist and computational ecologist at Microsoft Research, where his work combines conservation science, policy, and tools and technology. Lucas works with a growing coalition of NGOs and universities to rapidly scale up the global conservation response through technology innovations. He has a strong interest in distributed biodiversity data collection, serving as an advisor to the European Biodiversity Observation Network and the citizen science platform iNaturalist.org. Lucas serves as the scientific lead for Microsoft’s partnership with the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, serves on the IUCN Red List Committee, and chairs the Red List Informatics Working Group. He plays advisory roles with institutions including UNEP-WCMC, the Global Environmental Facility, and Natural England. In 2013 he received the Society for Conservation Biology’s ‘Early Career Award’.

Mary Klein, President and CEO of NatureServe, has been an active proponent for the conservation of species and ecosystems for nearly 30 years. She leads an international network of more than 1,000 conservation professionals who provide the scientific basis for effective conservation action and respond to more than six million information inquiries each year. Mary also serves on various boards and committees of IUCN Red List Partnership, the Wildlife Habitat Council, iDigBio, the University of Florida, SESYNC, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the Transportation Research Board’s Strategic Highway Research Program, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, among others.