Here we present the nine members for the Community Advisory Board. We are delighted that we have been able to recruit these renowned scientists and data experts for the Community Advisory Board.
Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom
University of Florida
Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom is a Professor and Preeminent Scholar of the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Florida. He has over 25 years of experience in the development and application of crop simulation models and decision support systems. Applications range from freeze forecasting to climate variability and climate change, water resources management, biofuels, economic and environmental sustainability, and food security. Professor Hoogenboom also has worked extensively on defining Minimum Data Sets for modeling and data analytics and associated data standards and FAIR practices. He currently coordinates the development of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer, a crop modeling system that is being used world-wide by many scientists and others interested in systems analysis and decision support.
Dr. Medha Devare
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Dr. Medha Devare is a cropping systems agronomist with significant management experience, familiarity with field work in the US and developing countries, and expertise in agricultural research for development, microbial and molecular ecology, bioinformatics, data and knowledge management, ontology development and semantic web technology. Currently she is leading data and analytics efforts of CGIAR’s Excellence in Agronomy Initiative: providing the vision for and overseeing the development of a robust, FAIR data and analytics infrastructure, from collection of interoperable data to analysis and visualization of aggregated data. Previously she led CGIAR’s Big Data Platform for Agriculture’s work on data standardization and management. She also spearheaded a large initiative to coordinate a consistent approach to Open Access and Open Data (2014-2016), working with knowledge managers, data managers, scientists, and leaders across 15 CGIAR Centers and external Open Data initiatives to build relationships and explore shared approaches.
Prof. Dr. Mark Wilkinson
Technical University of Madrid
Dr. Mark D. Wilkinson is currently affiliated with the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and holds the position of Adjunct Professor of Medical Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Over the last decade, his research has been dedicated to addressing the challenge of empowering bio/medical researchers to conduct their own data management and analysis. His extensive work has revolved around applying semantics to scientific data and the corresponding analytical services. Dr. Wilkinson possesses notable expertise in Web Semantics, Data Linking, and the application of Artificial Intelligence to significant biological data across Natural Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Information Science. His ongoing research focuses specifically on the implementation of ‘FAIR Data.’
Dr. Willem Jan Knibbe
Wageningen Data Competence Center
Dr. Willem Jan Knibbe serves as the director of the Wageningen Data Competence Center at Wageningen University & Research. He has a PhD in Physics & Astronomy and has worked for many years in various data intensive environments on scientific research and its applications, including Natural Science, Environment, Agriculture and Health. The Wageningen Data Competence Center is dedicated to advancing data science in both research and education at Wageningen University and Research and targets the development and application of expertise in data intensive methods and technology for the living environment. Willem Jan Knibbe is instrumental in promoting the development of robust research infrastructure and fostering sound data management practices within the institution and beyond.
Prof. Dr. Clement Jonquet
French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE)
University of Montpellier
Dr. Clement Jonquet, PhD in Informatics is associate research scientist atNational Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (France, INRAE) at the Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics for the Environment and Agronomy (MISTEA) research unit and associate professor at University of Montpellier, associated member of the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics of Montpellier (LIRMM)laboratory. He has 13 years of experience in ontologies and semantic Web research applied to biomedicine and agronomy. He works on the design and development of ontology repositories, ontology-based services especially semantic annotation. Since 2015, he gathers the national and international agronomy community around the AgroPortal initiative to build a reference vocabulary and ontology repository for agronomy, food and plant sciences.
Dr. Pierre Martre
French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE)
Dr. Pierre Martre is an ecophysiologist and crop modeler at National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) in Montpellier (France). His research focuses on cereal adaptation to climate change. His group develops and integrates a combination of ecophysiological, phenomics, and modeling approaches to predict the responses of genotypes to heat and drought scenarios and identify traits that can be used by breeders, and that are ultimately integrated in genomic prediction pipelines.
Additionally, Dr. Martre plays a significant role in the leadership team of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) and is a member of the wheat expert group. With extensive experience within AgMIP and beyond, he is actively involved in the establishment of databases and the development of data tools.
Dr. Imma Subirats
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Dr. Imma Subirats is a senior knowledge and information management officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with a wealth of experience in enhancing accessibility and visibility to knowledge, information, and data. She is skilled in Information Science, Research Data, Library Instruction, and Semantics and her areas of expertise include standards, tools and best practices in data management and exchange in the context of academia, research, public and private sectors. Currently Imma Subirats is involved in leading the strategic development and implementation of three key programs at FAO: the AGROVOC thesaurus, the International System for Agricultural Science and Technology (AGRIS), and the Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA).
Dr. Henning Müller
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI)
Agrotech Valley e.V.
Hof Fleming
Dr. Henning Müller works as a scientist at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and is the first chairman of the Agrotech Valley Forum e. V. He thus acts at the interface between science and practice. As an economic geographer with a doctorate and a trained farmer, he is significantly involved in a comprehensive collaboration with research that focuses on the entire agri-food system and aims to directly involve agricultural businesses. In this context, numerous research and development projects are carried out on the “Hof Fleming” farm under his leadership, and Henning Müller is also involved as deputy chairman of the expert advisory board on digitalization at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Agriculture.
Dr. Steffen Kawelke
Gemeinschaft zur Förderung von Pflanzeninnovation e. V.
Dr. Steffen Kawelke is a biologist and completed his PhD in Göttingen, specializing in plant biochemistry. Since 2015, he has been working for the Gemeinschaft zur Förderung von Pflanzeninnovation e. V. (GFPi), a research association of plant breeding companies operating in Germany, as a specialist for plant innovation, IP and contracts. Among other things, he coordinates the “Plant Innovation” section at GFPi, which deals with research topics that are relevant to all crops. Since 2020, the section’s work has also focused on data ecosystems and data science. In this context, Steffen coordinated the work of the GFPi’s Scientific Advisory Board on the concept paper “Data Science for Plant Breeding 4.0” (LINK). A direct follow-up activity of the concept paper is the current GFPi project “BreedFides” on the design of a sustainable data ecosystem in plant breeding.