Jorge Soberon

Jorge Soberon obtained B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the National University of Mexico. He obtained his Ph.D. from Imperial College, University of London, in 1982. From 1982 to 2005 he was a Researcher at the Institute of Ecology, National University of Mexico. He is now Senior Scientist at the Biodiversity Research Center of the University of Kansas. He has published more than 80 scientific papers, chapters, books and science popularization articles. His areas of expertise are theoretical population ecology, conservation biology and informatics for biodiversity. From June 1992 to April 2005 he was seconded by the National University to serve as the Executive Secretary of the National Commission on Biodiversity of Mexico (CONABIO). The main mandate of CONABIO was to compile databases and maintain an information system of the biodiversity of Mexico. This system is now regarded one of the best in the world. In his capacity as Executive Secretary he helped to design and supervised the development of large databases of specimen data, systems for utilize remote sensing data to the monitoring of biodiversity in Mexico and the application of cutting-edge extrapolation techniques to the problem of predicting occurrences of biodiversity elements based on partial and biased data. He has attended all the Conferences of the Parties of the Convention on Biodiversity and many of its peripheral meetings, often as Head of Mexican Delegation. He helped to develop the concept of the Global Biodiversity Information facility (GBIF) and still serves as Vice Chair of the Scientific Committee of GBIF. He has served as board member of the All Species Foundation, NatureServe, Pronatura, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Fund, the Scientific Advisory Council of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology, the Advisory Board of the Network of the National Ecological Observatory Network and many Mexican institutions.