Morphbank :: Biological Imaging team

Fredrik has his PhD from Uppsala University in Sweden, where he studied the comparative morphology, phylogeny, and evolution of cynipoid wasps. He spent a few years at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm before returning to Uppsala University, where he became Professor of Systematic Zoology before moving to Florida State University in 2003. Fredrik still maintains an active interest in the systematics, phylogeny and evolution of the Hymenoptera but much of his post-PhD research has focused on computational phylogenetics, particularly the development of parsimony methods for the study of coevolution and biogeography and more recently Bayesian MCMC methods for phylogenetic inference. Fredrik is also an adjunct member of the steering group for the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative, and is coordinating the large interdisciplinary team developing morphbank.

Dr. Riccardi's current research involves Data Grids and Web Services.

Austin's research involves topics at the interface of plant evolution and ecology. He is the Director of FSU's Robert K. Godfrey herbarium. He is heavily involved in making morphbank useful to natural history collections.

Guillaume, the newest member of the Morphbank Team, joined us in the Fall of 2010. He brings his JAVA and XML knowledge to Morphbank and is busy using his programming skills to enhance Morphbank Web Services and Bulk Upload strategies. Guillaume is also working on the collaboration with Specify and Morphster to link their software to ours. Welcome, Guillaume.

Robert's research interests are in the areas of compilers, distributed computing, grid computing and Web services, problem-solving environments for scientific computing, and Bayesian probabilistic networks. His specialization in the area of compilers include symbolic analysis for restructuring and parallelizing compilers, generalized induction variable recognition, data dependence analysis, embedded systems optimizations, and parametric estimation.

Andy's professional interests lie in the systematics of parasitic Hymenoptera, specifically Evaniidae (ensign wasps), Braconidae, Ceraphronoidea, and "Proctotrupoidea". His postdoctoral research will focus on elucidating new (and improving known) morphological character systems for estimating relationships between apocritan lineages.

Karolina joined the team in January 2006. She earned her Master degree in Computer Science from Florida State University. Her main interest is applied security and development of secure web applications. She developed a Java tool for managing large sets of data and images in Excel format. This tool should provide a fast and secure way for researchers to maintain their images as part of morphbank. She also worked on developing an application for importing and exporting data base records in XML format.

Steve has been with the morphbank team since July 2005. He received his BS from the College of Information at Florida State University with concentrations in Web Development and Network Administration. Steve is interested in developing dynamic and versatile web applications that utilize many different web technologies, and has a strong interest in web/interface design. He has been involved in web development since 1996, and enjoys the challenges of creating and maintaining large scale web sites and services. Steve is in charge of the Search module and controls the CSS, design, and graphical aspects of the web site.

Saransh is currently pursuing a Masters in the Department of Computer Science at Florida State University. He is involved in development and deployment of web services for morphbank project at the School of Computational Sciences.

Matt is primarily interested in the systematics of the Cynipoidea, with a focus on the Figitidae. Since completing his PhD in the Heraty Lab (UC Riverside) in March 2005, he has been working for Fredrik Ronquist on the Tree of Life project. His goals are to assemble character matrices (DNA and morphology) for Cynipoidea, Proctrupoidea and smaller families within Proctotrupoidea s.s. He is also a subject editor for Zootaxa and Pan-Pacific Entomologist.

Michael joined the morphbank team in January 2008. He is a returning student to FSU seeking an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science. Michael served the scientific community for years as an Environmental Specialist with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection developing software for biological and chemical sample analysis. His interests are non-point source pollution and the use of geographic information systems.

Neelima started working on the morphbank project in March 2004 by maintaining and developing software for the project. She is interested in developing bioinformatics tools and applications, including biological databases that help researchers to better perform and communicate their research. She got her Masters in Bioinformatics from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Albert's background is on geological sciences and paleontology, after earning a B.S. in Geology from the University of Barcelona (1996) and a M.Sc. from Montana State University (2001).He is an evolutionary vertebrate morphologist, currently focusing on resolving the phylogenetic relationships and historical biogeography of hadrosauroid dinosaurs for his doctoral dissertation here at Florida State University. Albert previously focused his research on archosaur anatomy and evolution, with emphasis in taxonomy and phylogenetics.

Wilfredo is interested in graphics applications, simulation, images processing and programming user interfaces. In his Master degree he developed a 3D Tomographic Image Processing software, involving several techniques such as: Volume rendering, digital image filters and 3D surface generation. In 2002 he started to work in the Visualization Lab at CSIT-FSU focusing on analysis, processing and visualization of neural data. Wilfredo worked with the morphbank project, and he is interested in working on image matching algorithms.

David was the Project Manager and Head Software Engineer for the morphbank Database Project. Prior to working with the morphbank project, David was the Associate Chair of the Computer Science Department at Florida State University. He first arrived at FSU in April 1999 after serving 22 years on active duty with the United State Air Force. David has been involved with several large software projects including development and mainteance for the Airborne Warning and Control System Aircraft (E3A), the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missle, Telemetry Analysis Systems at Eglin Air Force Base, and the re-design of the Air Force's Civil Engineer Automated Management System. Besides managing the project, David is currently finishing his PhD in Computer Science and is involved with the Image Annotation software on morphbank.

Katja received her Masters in Entomology from the University of Kentucky studying Hymenoptera systematics, with a focus in informatics. Her primary interests are in using art and new media in Entomology for education and biodiversity studies, facilitation of collaboration in large projects and keys for identification.

Chris joined the morphbank team in September of 2006. He is a Systems Administrator and Systems Developer for the project, in association with a dual position within the Technical Services Group at FSU's School of Computational Sciences. He has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky and is an avid advocate of Open Source Software.

Dr. Erickson's primary area of interest is evolutionary morphology, with the major focus on the form, function, development, and evolution of the verterate musculo-skeletal system. He employs phylogenetic principles and methods from several traditional fields of study (including anatomy, physiology, biomechanical engineering, evolutionary biology, and vertebrate palentology) to address unique evolutionary questions that are not surmountable within any one discipline.

Debbie joined the group in March 2006 as the resident biologist with experience in the biology labs at FSU. She has several degrees including Biological Science, Chemistry and Education. Debbie has an interest in botanical education and economic botany. Debbie works as a data analyst on the Morphbank system. She assists users in developing their own collections on the Morphbank database and is also one of the technical writers.

Peter earned his PhD from the University at Buffalo's School of Informatics, where he worked as a Senior Applications Analyst in the Computing and Information Technology Division. As part of his job at the University of Buffalo, he managed the Advanced Technolgy Skunkworks, a team of IT professionals responsible for facilitating the adoption of advanced information technologies. His research interests include artificial neural networks, image indexing and retreival, new media, spatial display of multidimensional data, and user interface issues.

Robert joined us in 2009 bringing the latest in php and javascript to Morphbank.

Cynthia was the Technical Writer and Editor for the morphbank project. She is currently responsible for the writing and editing of all users manuals, software documentation, and published articles. Besides working as an elementary school educator, Cynthia also worked as a production manager and advisor for the ClassMate Magazine in Monterey California.

Corinne (Associate Dean for Academics and Research) earned her MLS and PhD from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. She is the author or coauthor of over fifty publications in the area of image indexing and retreival and has won four national awards for her research and publications. Her most recent major publication is the book Image Retrieval: Theory and Research(2003).