Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe

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BioCISE project member

Dr. Richard Pankhurst began his career in computing in the computer section at CERN, Geneva in 1963, and moving back to Cambridge to work on Computer-Aided Design in 1966. In 1971 he moved to the Botany School, Cambridge to begin work on his PANKEY programs for identification and key construction. This was continued at the Botany department of the Natural History Museum from 1974 until 1991, where he was for many years curator of the British herbarium, and also worked on the Flora Meso-Americana. "Biological Identification", 1978, was the first textbook on computer methods in identification. A new version of this book was published by C.U.P in 1991. Also published in that year was the Flora of the Outer Hebrides. With over 50 publications of refereed papers and books in the fields of taxonomic computing he has made major contributions to these fields. Dr. Pankhurst has been very active recently in programming and managing botanical databases (Flora Europaea, BSBI database and PANDORA) and systems with images. He was appointed Principal Scientific Officer at the RGB Edinburgh in 1991.

Dr. Pankhurst serves on various committees of British and international organizations, among others.

Botanical Society of the British Isles, Committee for Scotland and Database Committee

Botanical Society of Scotland, Council

Taxonomic Databases Working Group, convener of Descriptors Group

International Organisation for Plant Information, co-convener of Information Systems Committee, Checklist Committee.

Dr. Pankhurst is the head of the Department of Taxonomic Computing.

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Address: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, D-14195 Berlin, Germany