Originally educated in theoretical chemistry and physics, Wouter Los entered biology and held various research and management positions. He became increasingly interested in e-BioScience and data science. Dr. Wouter Los is director of the Zoological Museum (Institute for Systematics and Population Biology) at the University of Amsterdam. He is involved in various European and global initiatives with respect to information technology in systematic biology. As the chairman of the Expert centre for Taxonomic Identification (ETI), he has promoted the free distribution of new software programs for building taxonomic expert systems. He will also act as the contact person to the natural history institutes in the Consortium of European Large-Scale Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF).
Dr. W. Los is a former chair of the Science Committee of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and designed and managed the development of the (ESFRI) LifeWatch infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research, and also a member of the EC High Level Group that edited the report “Riding the Wave”. He has also initiated various initiatives in biodiversity e-science over the last decades. These include the development of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and large EU-funded projects such as Fauna Europaea and European Network of Biodiversity Information (ENBI). He was coordinator of the FP7 projects Creative-B and ENVRI. He has also coordinated the LifeWatch preparatory project and provided consultancy for its further development.
