International Symposium: Revision of Flora Brasiliensis: challenges and opportunities

Vanderlei Perez Canhos is the President Director of the Reference Center on Environmental Information (CRIA) a non-governmental not-for-profit organization devoted to making biodiversity data freely and openly available via the Internet.

Vanderlei received his B.S. (1971) and Masters degree (1975) from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and his Ph.D. degree (1980) from the Oregon State University.

His research interests are microbial systematics, biological collections information systems and biodiversity informatics.

From 1972-1975, Dr. Canhos was an Instructor, and from 1980-2001 he was an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Food Science Department at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Dr. Canhos was responsible for the establishment of the Tropical Culture Collection and the Tropical Database-BDT, where he was the scientific director from 1985 to 2001. He is currently the the team leader of the "Distributed information system for biological collections and its integration with Species Analyst and SinBiota" (splink.cria.org.br) and "SICol - Information System for Collections of Biotechnological Interest" (sicol.cria.org.br) projects.

He participated in the development of the proposal "Building the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN): A Regional Biodiversity Clearinghouse for the Americas", submitted to GEF/World Bank in 2000 and in the development of the Strategic Plan for the Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as a member of the Informal Advisory Committee of the CHM in 1999.

He has acted as:

• Member of the Subcommittee on Capacity Building and Outreach of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF (2001 - 2003)
• Member of the Project Team of the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network - IABIN (1999 - 2003)
• President of the Executive Board of the "World Federation for Culture Collections - WFCC" (1996 - 2000)

He is currently:

• Chair of the Species 2000 Board of Directors
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Expert Taxonomy Information - ETI
• Member of the Steering Committee of the Program Biota-FAPESP The Virtual Institute of Biodiversity
• Member of the Subcommittee on Digitization of Biological Collections (DIGIT) of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• Consultant to the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) as a member of the Biological Resource Centers Task Force

Comitê Científico: Lúcia G. Lohmann Universidade de São Paulo (USP) Vanderlei Perez Canhos Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental (CRIA) Ariane Luna Peixoto Jardim Botanico do Rio deJaneiro George Shepherd Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) Apoio: Organização:

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