University of Amsterdam

•

Contact

	Zoological Museum Amsterdam
	Faculty of Science - University of Amsterdam
	P.O. Box 94766
	NL - 1090 GT  Amsterdam
	The Netherlands
	Visitor address: Mauritskade 57, 1092 AD Amsterdam
	Phone: 0(031)20 - 525 7191
	Fax: 0(031)20 - 525 7780
	GSM/mobile: 0(031)6 - 51050565
	E-mail: yjong @ uva.nl
	WWW: www.yjong.net
	Skype: ydjong

•

Currently involved biodiversity informatics programs and working groups

– A Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI): integrating five major European taxonomic networks and their respective knowledge infrastructures into a standards based, quality controlled, expert validated, open-access infrastructure for research, education, and biodiversity management. [ coordinator ] – Fauna Europaea: Assembling a database of scientific names and distributions of all living multicellular European terrestrial and fresh-water animals. [ head & executive manager ] – Biodiversity Virtual e-Laboratory (BioVel): Building tools for pipelining data and analysis into efficient workflows, urgently needed to understand biodiversity in a rapidly changing environment. [ task leader on taxonomic work flows ] – iMarine: Data e-infrastructure initative for fisheries management and conservation of marine living resources. [ science board member ] – Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy (ViBRANT): Supporting biodiversity research communities. [ workpackage co-leader on standardisation & internationalisation ] – Opening Up the Natural History Heritage for Europeana (OpenUp!): Providing multimedia content with specific biological and multilingual functionality for Europeana. [ SMEBD council representative ] – Toward the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT): EU Networks of Excellence (NoE) on Taxonomy. [ task leader on integrating Europe's taxonomic information infrastructure ] – Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF): Electronic Catalogue of Names of Known Organisms (ECAT) work area. [ work area chair & Science committee member 2007-2011 ] – Society for the Management of European Biodiversity Data (SMEBD). [ council member ] – Species 2000 Europa (EuroCAT): The European contribution to Species 2000 and the Catalogue of Life (CoL). [ EuroHub coordinator ] – Encyclopedia of Life (EOL-informatics): Nomina workinggroup. [ working group member ] – ZooBank: Authoritative register of all scientific names of animals. [ ZooBank commitee member ] – CODATA: Task Group on Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD). [ task group member ] – International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases (TDWG): Task groups on Taxonomic Names and Concepts (TNC) and Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). [ Executive commitee member - EU representative ]

•

Other research interests

In Phycology I am working at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands (NHN - University Leiden branch) on cladistic and biogeographic studies of selected groups of seaweeds using molecular and non-molecular data and exploring divers methods. My main interest concerns a long-term investigation on the taxonomy, phylogeny and developmental biology (so called 'evo-devo') of the red seaweed family Dasyaceae (Rhodophyta, Cermiales). In an attempt to integrate cladistics and the modeling of morpho- and ontogenesis using various methods, I am collaborating with Dr Jaap Kaandorp from the Section Computational Science (University of Amsterdam).

My main interest in the Philosophy of Biology is the concept of homology in comparative Biology. In close collaboration with a.o. Prof. dr J.W. McAllister and Prof. Dr Diedel Kornet we are searching the analogies between different fields of historical reconstruction from conceptual and methodological perspectives.

•

Background (past & present)

Education

1984 - 1988 MSc Biology. Faculty of Sciences - University of Amsterdam. [ systematics ; evolutionary biology ; genetics ] 1988 - 1991 BA Philosophy. Faculty of Philosophy - University of Amsterdam & Faculty of Philosophy - Leiden University. [ epistemology ; methodology ; history of science ] 1999 Postdoctoral Scholarship Database Informatics. CENS University. 2000 - ... Advanced training (courses and seminars) on database informatics.

	Previous Positions
	1991 - 1992 Research assistant. University of Amsterdam - Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics. [ evolutionary genetics ; molecular systematics ] 1992 - 1998 PhD student Biology. National Herbarium of the Netherlands - University Leiden branch. [ phycology ; phylogenetics ; biogeography ] 2000 - 2004 Senior researcher. University of Amsterdam - Faculty of Science. [ biodiversity informatics ; theoretical systematics ] 1998 - 2005 Guest researcher. Instituut Biology Leiden - Leiden University, Section Theoretical Biology. [ foundations of comparative biology ]

	Present Positions
	2004 - ... Head Department Biodiversity Informatics. University of Amsterdam - Zoological Musem Amsterdam. [ biodiversity informatics ; theoretical systematics ] 1997 - ... Honorary staff. National Herbarium of the Netherlands - University Leiden branch, Research group Phanerogams and Cryptogams.  [ integrated biology ; marine evolutionary botany ] 2006 - ... Scientific Associate. Natural History Museum London - Zoology Department. [ EDIT ; ZooBank ; herbarium ]

	Professional & Academic Affiliations
	– International Phycological Society
	– Willi Hennig Society
	– Society of Systematic Biologists
	– Dutch Flemish Classification Society (VOC)
	– International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB)
	– International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases (TDWG)
	– Section Bioinformatics - Royal Dutch Chemical Society (KNCV)
	– Tree of Life (ToL)
	– Section Phycology - Royal Dutch Botanical Society (KNBV)
	– Dutch Institute of Biology (NIBI)

	Honours
	2 July 1994 George F. Papenfuss Award, awarded by the International Phycological Society, Fifth International Phycological Congress - Qingdao (China).

Interviews

Selected publications (on phycology)

EU on top of the world