News

Serita Van Der Wal joined the OBIS secretariat

We welcome Ms Serita Van Der Wal (South Africa) at the OBIS secretariat based at the IOC Project Office for IODE in Oostende (Belgium). She will support us in (i) managing the information about observing systems, networks, and data assets provided via a portal for the Global Ocean Observing System, Biology and Ecosystems Panel (GOOS BioEco) and (ii) provide coordination with the observing systems, networks, and data-producing projects contributing to biological and ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (EOV) with the aim to bring more of the data from these facilities fully online through OBIS, and become interoperable and reusable as part of an integrated global ocean observing system.

Her background is in biodiversity, systematics, morphology and evolution of marine parasitic Crustacea, including extant and fossil forms. She completed her M.Sc. degree in Environmental Sciences at the North-West University in South Africa and is currently completing her PhD in Evolutionary & Developmental Biology as an external candidate of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. She focusses on marine research communication and the development of standardisations and best practises within biological and ecological research data. Serita has been recruited through VLIZ – Flanders Marine Institute for an initial period of 12 months. We are excited to have her in our team.