Expert Details
Systems Management, Databases, Linux, Biodiversity informatics, Ecological Niche/Envelope Models
ID: 729617
United Kingdom
During his later projects he participated in design and implementation of the DAISIE alien species database describing ~50 000 introduction events of ~10 000 alien species in Europe. He collated data from partners in different parts of Europe into a single database and created software to map and explore alien species occurrence and spread in Europe. During the NOBANIS project he has produced and published a few popular alien species profiles. He has implemented a few regional biodiversity resource portals. Currently he works as systems manager at the Employer (4D4Life and i4Life projects funded by the EC 7th Framework). He works in a team of the Catalogue of Life - the database aiming to collect names and taxonomy of all known living species. He is also employed as a leader of a work-package in the i4Life project which aims to bring together all the major global biodiversity data providers and smaller biodiversity databases into a unified workflow that would allow to exchange and update taxonomical parts of databases of all the participating parties.
Since 2001, he has been producing ecological niche/environmental envelope models implemented in GIS (IDRISI, Manifold GIS, and own software) to map species or habitat distributions (probability of occurence of marine habitats or species under certain environmental conditions) for an environmental consultancy Alleco located in Helsinki. These maps were used by the consultancy to plan sampling and produce reports for their customers.Since 2001 has been designing and programming server-side software for LAMP systems. This includes various databases and web-frontends programmed using Perl, PHP or customized Webmin/Usermin. usually this also involves some JavaScript. Also programming crossplatform dektop applications (using LiveCode RAD for it). Different customers - from private research organisations to government agencies that need working systems delivered within reasonable timeframe.As an employee (systems manager) at the University of Reading he did comparison of options, described, chose, ordered and purchased pc and server hardware. Virtualized the catalogue's of life servers infrastructure and introduced load balancing (as well as elimination of single point of failure). Systems management also involved beta testing of the software provided by project partners, building Linux servers, scripting (bash, awk, sed, php, perl), data transformation (ETL).
Education
Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
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Year: 2000 | Degree: MSc | Subject: Ecology | Institution: Klaipeda University |
Year: 1998 | Degree: BSc | Subject: Ecology | Institution: Klaipeda University |
Work History
Years | Employer | Title | Department |
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Years: 2009 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: Systems Manager | Department: School of Biological Sciences |
Responsibilities:Responsible for production servers (hardware purchases, maintenance, set up, virtualization, software and database development/tests, supervision of staff for i4life project, software and services documentation) and new services of the Catalogue of Life. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2000 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: consultant (self employed) | Department: |
Responsibilities:Independent consultant: software development, databases, species distribution and habitat mapping. Working both with former employers and new contractors. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2004 to 2009 | Employer: University of Klaipeda | Title: Research Assistant/Lecturer/PhD student | Department: Coastal Research and Planning Institute |
Responsibilities:Software and database development for DAISIE project. Also other projects on alien species (NOBANIS, BINLIT, EUROCOML) some of these were not employment contracts but consulting. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1999 to 2002 | Employer: Institute for Applied Ecology (Rostock, Germany) | Title: Research Assistant | Department: |
Responsibilities:Sampling and analysis of Baltic Sea and North Sea zoobenthos. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1996 to 2000 | Employer: Marine Research Centre | Title: Researcher | Department: |
Responsibilities:Monitoring (macrozoobenthos) of the Baltic Sea and Curonian Lagoon: sampling, data analysis, state of environment report writing. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1996 to 2000 | Employer: Fishery Research Laboratory | Title: Research Assistant | Department: |
Responsibilities:Monitoring of fish resources and impacts of alien species, sampling, analysis, report writing. |
Government Experience
Years | Agency | Role | Description |
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Years: 1996 to 2000 | Agency: Fishery Research Laboratory, Ministry of Agriculture (Lithuania) | Role: Research | Description: He was directly involved in all steps of monitoring of state of fish resources or impacts of environmental and anthropogenic factors (alien species, oil spils, diseases, fishing activities, port deepening and soil dumping activities) on fish populations from planning research strategy, fish sampling and sample analysis to report writing and submission of results to agencies or organizations like ICES. |
Years: 1997 to 2004 | Agency: Marine Research Centre, Ministry of Environment (Lithuania) | Role: Research, Consulting | Description: He was directly involved in all steps of monitoring of state of marine environment (zoobenthos) or impacts of environmental and anthropogenic factors (alien species, oil spils, diseases, fishing activities, port deepening and soil dumping activities) on macrozoobenthic populations. This included sampling, data analysis, report writing and submission of results to agencies and organizations like HELCOM. |
Years: 2006 to 2008 | Agency: Republic of Marshall Islands Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination | Role: Consultant | Description: He was a developer of the dynamic website and databases of the Biodiversity Clearinghouse Mechanism. |
Years: 2005 to Present | Agency: European Comission (as the funding body) | Role: Consultant and Project Partner | Description: He is developer of software tools/systems manager and databases in various EC funded (7th Framework Programme) projects related to biodiversity and biodiversity informatics. |
International Experience
Years | Country / Region | Summary |
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Years: 2009 to Present | Country / Region: United Kingdom | Summary: Systems Manager and Developer, Workpackage Leader in the EC Funded projects 4D4Life and i4Life at the University of Reading. Supporting and developing IT infrastructure (Linux Servers, Virtualization using XEN) for the Catalogue of Life services. |
Career Accomplishments
Licenses / Certifications |
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Environmental Information Management (course certificate from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm); **CMAS Research Diver License |
Professional Appointments |
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Research assistant (Analyst), Systems Manager, Project Workpackage Leader |
Publications and Patents Summary |
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He has 16 publications (both independent and in cooperation with other authors) in ecology science. |
Additional Experience
Expert Witness Experience |
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Writing reports for governmental organizations. |
Training / Seminars |
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Used to deliver lectures of Ecology (general, population, ecosystems) for undergraduate students and superwise students course projects at Klaipeda University. |
Vendor Selection |
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Hardware purchase for previous emploers and 4D4Life and i4Life projects: PCs, servers, accessories. Expert in open source software. |
Marketing Experience |
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Rapid crossplatform software development using LiveCode (GUI, interfacing with databases). Web applications programming (Linux, Apache, Perl/PHP, HTML/XML/JavaScript). Databases (MySQL, SQLite). |
Other Relevant Experience |
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Systems Management |
Language Skills
Language | Proficiency |
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English | He uses English daily to communicate with colleagues and project partners. |
Russian | He uses Russian daily to communicate with colleagues and project partners who speak Russian as their first language. |
Lithuanian | Is a mother tongue. |
Fields of Expertise
biodiversity, client/server database access software, Common Gateway Interface, database, database design, database development, database management, database technology, environmental data, geographic information system, Structured Query Language, client/server system development, biodiversity informatics, SQL database, awk programming language, client/server architecture, client/server computing, computer programming, computer system administration, data management, data processing, data warehouse, database server, high-level programming language, Linux operating system, local area network, Perl programming language, relational database, scientific database development, marine habitat mapping, marine ecology, digital mapping, exotic biological species, environmental monitoring, environmental sample, environmental sampling, marine borer, environment-related assessment, aquatic ecosystem assessment, ecosystem modeling, biological species, food web modeling, food web, habitat, ecological environment, environmental impact assessment, science, habitat evaluation, expert system, ecosystem assessment, ecology, ecological risk assessment, ecological modeling, distributed processing