|
Project Staff
About the Darwin Project Team The Darwin Project is a collaboration between the Centre for Coastal and Marine Sciences - Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Natural History Museum UK. The project is being led by Dr Melanie Austen of PML. PML have responsibility for creating Internet keys and running workshops whilst the NHM is responsible for the virtual museum nematode collection but the each part of the project work is being achieved through collaboration between scientists at PML and the NHM
Dr Melanie C. Austen received her BSc (1983) from Heriot Watt University and PhD (1986) from the University of Exeter. She has been employed at Plymouth Marine Laboratory since 1986. Her research interests are in marine benthic community ecology, meiofaunal ecology and nematode taxonomy and benthic pelagic interactions. She has been particularly involved in the development of experimental studies of whole benthic communities including the use of mesocosms and microcosms to analyse the effects of pollutants on communities and to investigate macrofaunal-meiofaunal interactions. She has published more than 20 scientific papers in international journals. She has worked as a visiting scientist in Portugal and Norway and has collaborated on international research projects in the EU and with colleagues in bilateral projects (Portugal, Greece, Sweden, New Zealand, Thailand, China).
Dr Richard M. Warwick received his BSc (1965), PhD (1968) and DSc (1984) from the University of Exeter. He has worked at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory since 1972 where he is an Individual Merit grade 6 and has been Project leader of their Marine Biodiversity Research group since 1992. He is an honorary professor at the University of Plymouth, UK and the Ocean University of Qingdao, China. He is the managing editor of the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology and on the editorial boards of Marine Ecology Progress Series and Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. His research interests include the ecology of marine benthos including production, community structure, community responses to pollution, taxonomy and biodiversity. He has published more than 120 papers in international journals and 5 books.
Dr Paul J. Somerfield was a Foundation Scholar of the University of Dublin, Trinity College, from where he received his BA(mod.) (1985) and his PhD (1990). He has been employed at Plymouth Marine Laboratory since 1991. His research interests include the ecology of marine communities, particularly changes in community structure in response to disturbance such as anthropogenic inputs, and nonparametric multivariate methods for the analysis of community data. He also works on the spatial distribution of marine organisms, sampling methods for the study of marine communities, and the ecology and taxonomy of meiofauna. He has published over 20 research papers, contributed to 2 books, and collaborates with scientists from all over the world.
Dr K Robert Clarke received a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Univ. Leicester, (1969), M.Sc. (1970) and Ph.D. (1976) in Statistics from Univ. of Newcastle, then lectured in Statistics at Univ. of Glasgow (1973-79) and moved to the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in 1979. His current post is Individual Merit Grade 6. He is a Visiting Professor at Univ. of Sydney, Australia. He has published more than 60 refereed papers, mainly on statistical methods for analysing community structure data. His research developments are used worldwide (in 60 countries), mainly for environmental assessment, through his instigation of the PRIMER software package. He is a committee member of the Biometric Society and has given invited lectures at many international statistics and marine symposia. Resulting from his membership of the UN Group of Experts on the Effects of Pollutants, he has led numerous UN training workshops on statistical methods.
Dr P. John Lambshead received his Ph.D. from Brunel University in 1983. He was appointed as a Researcher in the Department of Zoology, at the Natural History Museum in 1978. Since 1998 he has been Head, Nematode Research Group, NHM. His research interests are the biodiversity of marine nematode assemblages with special reference to disturbance ecology in general and the deep sea in particular. Current projects include: Large scale biodiversity analysis of nematode faunas of the Pacific and Atlantic; The impact of phytodetritus fluff on Pacific and Indian Ocean nematode Faunas; Meiofauna/macrofauna interactions in San Diego Trough; Deep-sea sludge disposal at the New York 106 mile site; · Stochastic modelling of nematode communities. Member NSF NCEAS Group on Deep-Sea Biodiversity, ESF Biodiversity Advisory Group, External Advisory Group, Support for Research Infrastructures, Framework V, EC. He has published 52 papers in refereed scientific journals.
Dr Tim Ferrero received a BSc (Hons) in marine biology from Heriot-Watt University (1986) and his PhD from the University of Bristol (1992). He was appointed as a Researcher in the Department of Zoology, at the Natural History Museum in 1990. His research interests are free-living marine nematode ecology and taxonomy. He is currently working on estuarine, lagoonal and Antarctic nematodes. He has published 5 papers in refereed scientific journals.
Dr Neil Caithness (BSc UCT 1979; BSc Hons Wits 1980; PhD Wits 1996) has recently jointed the Natural History Museum as a Biodiversity Information Analyst. He was on the faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa for eight years before moving to the American Museum of Natural History as a Chapman Fellow in 1995. His research at the AMNH was in the computational aspects of systematics and biogeography where he developed new systems for predictive species range modelling. He also did extensive research into new computational methods in historical biogeography. His computational expertise is in software engineering and user interface design and development. He was recently invited as a GIS consultant to the WWF (US) conference on African biodiversity held in Cape Town in September, 1998.
Sean trained as an applied chemist but decided that was too messy so took a computing job with Natural Environment Research Council at Plymouth where he rose to IT Manager. He currently resides in Namibia where he is working with the United Nations for 2 years. He has never seen a live nematode, but enjoys hearing about them from his biological colleagues. His motto for this project is "XML and Java".
Martyn Atkins received his BSc Honours degree in Chemistry at Exeter University in 1991. After one year of postgraduate research (Microwave Spectroscopy) he was taken ill with M.E., a debilitating illness which lasted for many years causing him to abandon his PhD research. It was during this period of illness that Martyn returned home to Cornwall and started to tinker with computers. In 1997 he joined PML as a member of the PC support team. Martyn particularly enjoys programming and building web sites. Martyn has now taken over Sean's responsibilities while he is away in Africa ! |
John Lambshead - nematode taxonomy and ecology
Tim Ferrero - nematode taxonomy and ecology
|
|