Executive Committee

TDWG is led by an Executive Committee composed of officers elected by TDWG members. The Executive Committee is responsible for strategic direction, the high-level management and coordination of standards efforts, and the oversight of day-to-day operations. This page shows the currently elected members of the Executive Committee, see the bottom of the page for previous compositions.

Image by Tim Graf

Executive responsibilities and elections

TDWG is led by an Executive Committee composed of officers elected by TDWG members. The Executive Committee is responsible for strategic direction, the high-level management and coordination of standards efforts, and the oversight of day-to-day operations. The roles and responsibilities of each officer are set forth in the Constitution and further described in a supplementary document.

The term of office for all roles is normally two calendar years, with terms staggered such that only half of the Executive Committee is replaced or re-elected in a given year. Elections of officers are usually held in the 3rd or 4th Quarter of the year. Nominations are typically opened a month before the annual meeting and closed near the end of the meeting. Ballots are then distributed to members by email and voting is closed in approximately 30 days. (Scheduling the annual conference late in the year requires this typical schedule to be altered so that elections are completed before the end of year.)

Executive Committee 2018

Term of office shown as span of calendar years, inclusive.

Core officers

Role Name Affiliation Term of office
Chair Dimitris Koureas Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands  2017-2018
Deputy Chair James Macklin Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, ON, Canada 2017-2018
Secretary Quentin Groom Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium  2017-2018
Treasurer William Ulate Missouri Botanical Garden, MO, USA 2018-2019

Subcommittee chairs

Functional subcommittee Name Affiliation Term of office
Technical Architecture Group Paul Morris Museum of Comparative Zoology, MA, USA 2018-2019
Fundraising and Partnerships Martin Kalfatovic Smithsonian Institution Libraries and Biodiversity Heritage Library, Washington DC, USA 2017-2018
Infrastructure Tim Robertson Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Denmark 2018-2019
Outreach and Communications Prabhakar Rajagopal Strand Life Sciences and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), India 2017-2018
Time and Place Patricia Mergen  Royal Museum for Central Africa and Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium 2018-2019

Regional representatives

Region Name Affiliation Term of office
Africa Lucy Waruingi African Conservation Centre, Kenya 2017-2018
Asia Ji Liqiang Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences, China  2017-2018
Europe Wouter Addink Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands 2018-2019
Latin America Bruno de Carvalho Albertini University of Sao Paulo, Brazil 2018-2019
North America Cynthia Parr National Agricultural Library, USDA, MD, USA 2017-2018
Oceania Simon Checksfield CSIRO, Australia 2018-2019

Regularly invited participants (non-voting)

Role Name Affiliation
Conference Program Committee Co-Chair Gail Kampmeier Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
TDWG Coordinator Stan Blum San Francisco, CA, USA
Executive Committee 2019
Executive Committee 2018