Mathias Dillen
Biodiversity Data Scientist |
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Summary
My research focuses on the digitization, standardization and publication of biodiversity data. I have been and still am active in many EU Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funded research projects that have been building the groundworks for the upcoming European Research Infrastructure DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections), which aims to build a unified access and curation point for natural history collection data. These projects have included ICEDIG, DiSSCo Prepare, SYNTHESYS+, BiCIKL and DiSSCo Transition. Within these projects, I contributed and led on tasks related to fostering interoperability with collection management systems, applying computer vision to images of digitized specimens, assessing and improving data quality, promoting semantic interoperability and connecting to the linked open data ecosystem, in particular Wikidata. I am a member of the MIDS (Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen) task group and have contributed to developments for the Darwin Core standard as well.
I have also worked in the regional implementation project of DiSSCo, DiSSCo Flanders, where I mainly worked on collection data management, migrating Belgian living accession data into the Botanical Collections data portal and further developing our crowdsourcing platform DoeDat. In the TETTRIs project, I mainly worked on building links between preserved specimens and taxonomy by making use of a Wikibase. In the upcoming BMD (Biodiversity Meets Data) project, we will build on the experiences gained from the B-Cubed project to create a cubing engine for the envisioned single access point for biodiversity monitoring data.
Besides research, I am also highly involved in the Garden’s collection data management and data publication processes, both to our own data portal Botanical Collections and to external aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). I coordinate and maintain the publication pipelines as well as manage the data portal itself. In addition, I provide technical assistance in the management of our crowdsourcing platform DoeDat.
Degrees
- PhD in Bioscience Engineering – Forest and Nature Management, Ghent University, Belgium & University of Groningen, the Netherlands, 2013 - 2017
- MSc in Bioscience Engineering – Forest and Nature Management, Ghent University, Belgium, 2010 - 2012
Employment history
- Biodiversity Data Scientist, Meise Botanic Garden, 2018 - ongoing
Projects
- ICEDIG
- SYNTHESYS+
- DiSSCo Prepare
- BiCIKL
- DiSSCo Transition
- DiSSCo Flanders
- DiSSCo Flanders 2
- TETTRIs
- BMD
Publications
- https://researchportal.be/en/researcher/mathias-dillen-0
- https://researchportal.be/en/researcher/mathias-dillen