Meet the Support Hub

The Symbiota Support Hub was founded in 2021 to facilitate the mobilization and discovery of natural history collections as the 6th domain of iDigBio (NSF 2027654). Read on to get to know a little more about us!

Nico Franz
iDigBio Director for Symbiota Support Hub

Nico manages the Symbiota Support Hub team of biodiversity data scientists at Arizona State University, with the goal of providing reliable, scalable, innovative, and equitable data publication services to iDigBio collections communities.

Ed Gilbert
IT Management Lead

Ed is the IT System Administrator for the Symbiota Support Hub at Arizona State University and the lead programmer for the BioKIC open-source Symbiota software project.

Originally trained as a botanist, Ed has been working as a biologist and web developer within the field of Biodiversity Informatics for the last two decades. His primary responsibilities have centered around assisting in the mobilization and publication of specimen data associated with natural history collections. As a software developer, he has been heavily involved with the original design and development of the Symbiota software platform. This open-source software functions as a content management system specifically designed for managing biodiversity datasets within a collaborative web environment.

Samanta Orellana
International Community Coordinator

Samanta is an entomologist, and a current Ph.D. Student at Arizona State University. As the International Community Coordinator of the Symbiota Support Hub, Samanta is actively promoting and supporting the adoption and use of Symbiota throughout multiple regions and countries in Latin America, designing and delivering training workshops for Spanish speaking users. Samanta is the manager of the Guatemala Biodiversity Symbiota Portal.

Katie Pearson
Project Manager & Data Manager

Katie helps with organizing the Symbiota Support Hub and managing its many projects and initiatives. As data manager, she provides technical support for users of Symbiota-based biodiversity specimen data portals and helps to develop the Symbiota content management system software and its documentation. Katie is also a botanist and was the project manager for the California Phenology Collections Network.

Greg Post
System Administrator & Programmer

Greg manages the IT infrastructure that hosts the Symbiota data portals managed by Arizona State University. He also helps to develop the Symbiota content management system software, its documentation, and provides technical support for Symbiota users.

Laura Rocha Prado
NEON Biorepository Informatician
Symbiota Full-Stack Developer

Laura is a leaf beetle systematist currently working as a biodiversity informatician for the NEON Biorepository at Arizona State University. Laura is a full-stack developer responsible for designing and developing Symbiota software and documentation, as well as different tools using modern technologies to improve the workflows of natural history collections and access to biodiversity data.

Lindsay Walker
Community Manager

Lindsay provides support and resources for the growing community of Symbiota users. Before joining iDigBio and the Symbiota Support Hub, Lindsay was a collections manager and worked on various digitization projects at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Colorado, and elsewhere. Lindsay maintains a strong interest in the mobilization of paleontological collections data. 

Jenn Yost
Community Lead

Jenn advises and helps to coordinate the community engagement efforts of the Symbiota Support Hub in collaboration with the Leads at ASU. Jenn works closely with the Digitization Domain of iDigBio to bring more collections online via the Symbiota Portals. In addition to these roles, Jenn is the Lead PI on the California Phenology Herbarium Digitization TCN.

Mark Fisher
Symbiota Developer

Mark is a developer for Symbiota, world traveller, and an entomologist with a special interest in fire ants (Formicidae: Solenopsis invicta).

Looking for someone else? Refer to the iDigBio staff directory for more.