Plenary Speakers

John Archibald

Dalhousie University, Canada

John Archibald is Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, cross-appointed Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Arthur B. McDonald Chair of Research Excellence at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. He is also the Director of Dalhousie’s Institute for Comparative Genomics. Dr. Archibald is an Associate Editor for Genome Biology & Evolution and an Editorial Board member of several journals including Current Biology and BMC Biology. He is the author of ~200 research articles and two books: One Plus One Equals One: Symbiosis and the Evolution of Complex Life (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Genomics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2018). He was also Editor-in-Chief of the Handbook of the Protists (Springer, 2017), a 44-chapter, 2-volume set used the world over by teachers and researchers of eukaryotic microbiology. Between 2003 and 2007, Dr. Archibald was a Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Program in Evolutionary Biology, and was subsequently a CIFAR Fellow in the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity Program (2012-2017). Dr. Archibald is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and in 2022 was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2019 Dr. Archibald was awarded the Miescher-Ishida Prize from the International Society of Endocytobiology for his work on the biology of symbiosis, and in 2023, he received the Canadian Science Publishing Senior Investigator Award from the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences.

Iliana Bista

Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Germany

Dr. Iliana Bista is Group Leader at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. Her research integrates environmental and genomic approaches to characterize biodiversity and investigate how environmental change shapes ecosystems and genomes across multiple biological scales. For her PhD she worked on developing novel DNA based methods for biomonitoring, and subsequently worked on large scale genomics projects such as the Vertebrate Genomes Project at Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre. Her group develops and applies cutting-edge DNA-based approaches for biodiversity monitoring, with environmental DNA (eDNA), metabarcoding, and metagenomics with a particular interest on fish and arthropod species diversity. In parallel, the team leverages comparative genomics and large-scale biodiversity genomic datasets to investigate eco-evolutionary processes, species interactions, and the genomic mechanisms underlying adaptation to environmental change. With this integrative research, Dr. Bista aims to advance our understanding of biodiversity dynamics and support the development of innovative tools for ecosystem monitoring and better characterisation of the impact of environmental change on biodiversity.

Mark Blaxter

Wellcome Sanger Institute, United Kingdom

Mark Blaxter leads the Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life programme, generating and analysing genome sequences from thousands of species across the tree of life, especially Britain and Ireland (the Darwin Tree of Life project). His own research portfolio focuses on the genomics of neglected, non-model organisms – especially using the chromosomally-complete genome sequences generated by Tree of Life work – and the interpretation of those genomes in ecological and evolutionary contexts (including, inter alia, parasitic and free living nematodes, tardigrades, gastropod and bivalve molluscs, butterflies, bees, flies, birds, algae, fungi and bacteria).

He has played a key role in defining pattern and process in chromosome evolution in lepidoptera (comprising 10% of all described species) and nematodes. Before joining Sanger, he was Professor of Evolutionary Genomics in the University of Edinburgh. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2014.

Anne Chao

National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan

Anne Chao is a Professor in the Institute of Statistics at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. She is currently 60% statistician, 30% mathematician, and 10% ecologist. For over 40 years, she has been fascinated by the mathematical and statistical challenges arising in ecology and environmental sciences. Her research focuses on statistical methodologies, ecological statistics, and the sampling and analysis of biodiversity data. Together with her collaborators and students, she has developed widely used biodiversity measures and estimators, including Chao1, Chao2, ACE, and ICE, for assessing species richness. She has also contributed novel standardization methods and software, such as iNEXT, iNEXT.3D and iNEXT.beta3D, for inferring and comparing biodiversity across spatial and sampling scales.

Neelesh Naresh Dahanukar

Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR, India

Neelesh Naresh Dahanukar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at the School of Natural Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR. His research spans molecular phylogeny, biogeography, evolutionary biology, and wildlife disease epidemiology, with a focus on understanding evolutionary relationships, genetic diversity, and ecological adaptations across vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. He also works extensively with evolutionary game theory to study conflict resolution in biological systems and human–wildlife interactions. Prior to joining Shiv Nadar University, he held research and faculty positions at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune and the Zoo Outreach Organization. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pune and has been recognized with honors including the DST-INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship and Publons Top Reviewer Award.

Adrian Forsyth

Andes Amazon Fund, USA

Adran is the founder and former Executive Director of Andes Amazon Fund, where he now serves as strategic advisor. His fieldwork and conservation efforts have taken place in the most remote regions of the New World and Old World tropics for the past 45 years. Adrian co-founded the Andes-Amazon Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Amazon Conservation Association, and Osa Conservation. He has served as Vice President of blue moon fund, Director of Biodiversity at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Vice President of Conservation International. He has also worked as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Ontario Museum and was a faculty member of Arizona State University in the Department of Zoology. Adrian is the author of nine acclaimed natural history books and has developed five biological field stations in the Amazon and in Central America. He received his Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Harvard University under renowned biologist E.O. Wilson.

Laura Melissa Guzman Uribe

Entomological Data Science Lab, Cornell University, USA

Melissa is an ecologist and biodiversity scientist, interested in improving insect conservation by leveraging large scale distributional data and analyses. Her research includes developing methods to better use collections and community science data to reconstruct distributional trends and drivers of pollinator declines. She has evaluated the effects of climate change and pesticide use on bee communities for thousands of species across the North American continent, and has contributed to large scale efforts to survey insect biodiversity through barcoding, as well as estimate global insect richness using barcoding data. Finally, she has worked on integrating insect interaction data to develop spatially explicit networks at multiple spatial scales. In recognition of her work, she has been awarded the Early Career Award from the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution, the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Naturalists and is an Early Career Fellow from the Ecological Society of America.

Mehrdad Hajibabaei (Closing Plenary)

Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph, Canada

Mehrdad Hajibabaei is Professor of Biodiversity Genomics and Chief Scientific Officer of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph. His research advances environmental DNA (eDNA), metabarcoding, and large-scale biodiversity monitoring, integrating molecular ecology, bioinformatics, and evolutionary genomics. He has authored influential work on modernizing biomonitoring through genomics and leads international collaborations focused on standardization and scalable biodiversity assessment. As founder of eDNAtec Inc., he bridges academic innovation and applied implementation, promoting biodiversity genomics data for impact assessment, regulatory frameworks, and corporate sustainability. His work aims to transform how biodiversity is measured, managed, and protected globally.

Emily Hartop

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

Emily Hartop is an Associate Professor of Integrative Taxonomy and Phylogenetics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where she leads research on the discovery, identification, and monitoring of hyperdiverse insect groups. Her work combines morphology, DNA barcoding, machine learning, and natural history collections to develop scalable approaches for documenting the vast diversity of poorly known “dark taxa.” Emily has a particular interest in bridging traditional taxonomy with emerging technologies, enabling biodiversity data to be generated more rapidly while maintaining rigorous species hypotheses. She leads research activities within the Horizon Europe projects TETTRIX and BGE+ and co-leads the CETAF Scientific Research Working Group. Her research focuses on ensuring that the millions of undescribed species currently missing from biodiversity assessments can be incorporated into ecological research, conservation, and environmental decision-making.

Paul Hebert (Opening Plenary)

Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph, Canada

Paul Hebert is Professor of Integrative Biology and CEO of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at Guelph. As one of Canada’s 19 Major Research Infrastructures, the CBG provides informatics, organizational, and sequencing support to the bioscience community. As Scientific Director of the International Barcode of Life, Hebert has coordinated its two major research programs (BARCODE 500K, BIOSCAN). His 600 publications have generated 120K citations while he has trained more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He is an Officer in the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has four honorary degrees, and received the 2018 Heineken Prize for the Environment, the 2020 MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity, the 2024 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Earth & Environmental Science, and the 2025 Award for Outstanding Research & Development in Biodiversity from the Nobel Sustainability Trust.

Pete Hollingsworth

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Pete Hollingsworth is Director of Science and Deputy Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. His research focuses on understanding and conserving plant biodiversity. He has a particular focus on using DNA and genomic science to study the natural world, including developing and deploying DNA methods for telling plant species apart. He has been involved heavily involved in the International Barcode of Life, and most recently has focused on supporting the development of the iBOL community in Europe, through the Biodiversity Genomics Europe initiative. He is also heavily involved in the Darwin Tree of Life project, a major initiative to produce reference genomes for all eukaryotic species in Britain and Ireland. Other interests include the science and best practice of species reintroductions, understanding pest and pathogen threats to plants in the natural environment, and developing approach for the conservation of genetic diversity. Pete is an Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming Institute of Botany, and Heriot Watt University, and a Visiting Professor of the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Charlene Janion-Scheepers

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Charlene leads the Soil Ecology and Entomology Research (SEER) group at UCT, where her work explores how soil-dwelling invertebrates respond to two of the most pressing forces reshaping ecosystems today: climate change and biological invasions. Using springtails (Collembola) as model organisms, she is working across different areas, from South African mountain gradients to sub-Antarctic islands. Her approach combines classical taxonomy, physiology, DNA barcoding, and ecological analysis to understand the response of soil fauna to global change. Several projects feed into international efforts to build biodiversity baselines for conservation and monitoring, and into emerging global frameworks for DNA-based biodiversity discovery.

Alongside her research, Charlene is a Research Associate at the Iziko South African Museum, a Core Team member with the Centre for Invasion Biology, and the current President of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa.

Meng Yao

School of Life Sciences & Institute of Ecology, China

Dr. Meng Yao is a Full Professor in Molecular Ecology at Peking University. Her research centers on environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, which she applies to address a broad range of ecological questions, including biodiversity distribution patterns, biotic community assembly, food-web organization, and paleoecosystem dynamics. She also devotes efforts to advancing methodological frameworks and developing innovative eDNA sampling tools.

Maslin Osathanunkul

Chiang Mai University, Thailand

Maslin Osathanunkul is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Chiang Mai University, Thailand. Her research explores how environmental DNA (eDNA) and biodiversity genomics can transform the way we monitor life in the environment, enabling scientists to detect species, assess ecosystem health, and address emerging environmental and public health challenges.

She develops and applies innovative molecular approaches that integrate environmental DNA, digital PCR, CRISPR-based detection, DNA metabarcoding, and ecological modelling to generate robust, evidence-based tools for biodiversity monitoring. Her research spans freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems, advancing DNA-based solutions for biodiversity conservation, environmental biosecurity, sustainable agriculture, invasive species management, and public health surveillance.

Through interdisciplinary and international collaborations, Dr. Osathanunkul bridges cutting-edge molecular technologies with real-world conservation and environmental management. Her vision is to harness molecular technologies to make biodiversity monitoring more accessible, scalable, and actionable, ultimately enabling better decisions for conservation, environmental management, sustainable agriculture, and public health.

Otso Ovaskainen

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Otso Ovaskainen is a Professor in mathematical and statistical ecology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He currently focuses on research as an Academy Professor funded by the Research Council of Finland for periods 2021-2026 and 2026-2031. Ovaskainen obtained his PhD in mathematics in 1998 after which he moved to ecological applications, first using mathematical approaches, and later moving his focus on the development of statistical methods that enable ecologists and evolutionary biologists to make more out of their data. Ovaskainen has published ca. 300 peer-reviewed articles that develop and apply statistical, bioinformatical, machine learning, computational and theoretical methodology in biodiversity research. As the corresponding PI of the ERC-Synergy project LIFEPLAN, Ovaskainen has led the collection of one of the largest systematically collected (with audio, image and DNA) globally distributed biodiversity datasets. As the director of the Finnish Digital Citizen Science Center, Ovaskainen has combined smartphone -based biodiversity observations with real-time biodiversity monitoring.

Ben Price

Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom

Ben Price is a Principal Curator in Entomology at the Natural History Museum, London, where he is responsible for over 4 million invertebrate specimens. His research focuses on the diversity and evolution of freshwater and terrestrial invertebrates, using DNA barcoding, metabarcoding, metagenomics, and whole genome sequencing of both modern and historical museum specimens, as well as environmental DNA from bulk and eDNA samples. His group develops scalable methods for collections-based genomics, including low-cost DNA extraction protocols and high-throughput genome skimming pipelines, and integrates molecular data with computer vision and morphology to accelerate biodiversity discovery. Ben leads the UK Barcode of Life (UKBOL) project and leads the barcode and genome sequencing elements of Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE/BGE+), which includes the largest museum collections genomics initiative in the world. He is on the scientific steering group of the UK DNA Working Group, a government-agency led initiative developing standards for DNA-based biodiversity monitoring. Through these programmes, he and his team use the museum’s unparalleled collections to build gold-standard DNA reference libraries that underpin biodiversity monitoring and conservation policy across Europe and beyond.

Donald Quicke

Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

I’ve always had a deep interest in all aspects of science and biology in particular, and along the way I have worked on snail neurophysiology (PhD), ecological genetics of sea anemones (postdoc #1), chemistry and neurophysiology of spider venoms (postdoc #2), amongst other things. But as a schoolboy I had started to become interested in ‘parasitic wasps’ as they were called then, and whilst books on them didn’t exist, I started collecting and struggling to identify them. In parallel, our black-and-white TV had excited me about the tropics with programmes by presenters such as Sir David Attenborough, and I determined to get to them as soon as I could. At Oxford University, had I met a wonderfully entertaining ecologist, Dr Malcolm Coe, who said that I could stay for free in his small house inside Tsavo National Park, Kenya, and that’s where I encountered large, bright-coloured, tropical parasitoid wasps. No permits needed, and living on aptly named Lion Hill with an outdoor toilet and a large pride!

Move on 50 years, and I am still working on them, now in my retirement. Along the way, DNA ‘was invented’ and I had started using sequences to help separate species and uncover relationships, but mostly things like ITS-2. Then, through the generosity of BOLD, I was able to start barcoding larger numbers of braconids, sometimes solving problems, other times creating headaches. In addition to wasp taxonomy and phylogenetics, I am interested in their functional anatomy, life histories, host-relationships, ecology, and biodiversity. Whilst it is not trendy in UK science to be organism rather than topic focused, it is (just) possible, and I was appointed Professor of Systematics at Imperial College London in 2007, retiring to live in Bangkok in 2013 where I am affiliated with Chulalongkorn University and still ‘working’ on wasps.

Sophie von der Heyden

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Sophie is a molecular ecologist focussing on southern African aquatic ecosystems. Her research that spans from individuals to communities is by necessity broad and includes freshwater, estuarine and marine environments. Her particular interests lie in the applicability of molecular ecological and genomics tools to support the conservation and sustainable utilisation of species, such as supporting fisheries management and understanding the connectivity of protected areas. Using a broad range of tools, such as eDNA metabarcoding, population genomics and barcoding, Sophie and her lab provide novel data to help plug the biodiversity knowledge gaps in aquatic biodiversity in southern Africa across the Tree of Life. Sophie also investigates how natural systems can build and maintain resilience through adaptation of species to ongoing and future change, as well as the impacts of changing aquatic communities on human societies. Sophie has a broad national and international network of collaborators to help strength the capacity of molecular ecology and ecological genomics in southern Africa and beyond.

Elise Zipkin

Michigan State University, USA

As a quantitative ecologist, Dr. Elise Zipkin connects the complexities of natural communities with the precision of mathematics to shine light on mysteries in ecology and conservation. Elise and her team develop analytical frameworks to address grand challenges in the study of biodiversity loss and the effects of anthropogenic activities, such as climate change. She harnesses empirical data (big and small) to understand fine and subtle interactions in the natural world, revealing the causes and consequences of species’ declines and biodiversity loss while charting pathways to mitigate and reverse these alarming trends.

Elise has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and delivered more than 50 invited talks nationally and internationally. Among her honors is being named a Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholar, an International Ecology Institute (ECI) IPRE Laureate, and an AAAS Fellow. Elise regularly works with management agencies to translate the results of her research for conservation. She is committed to open, accessible, and reproducible science and to supporting and mentoring the next generation of scientists, natural resource managers, policy makers, and scientific communicators.

Learn more about iBOL

The International Barcode of Life Consortium is a research alliance undertaking the largest global biodiversity science initiative: create a digital identification system for life that is accessible to everyone