Meet our team of experts

Our experts:

**Development of the e-learning course educational content**
	Manolis Avramakis, an agronomist, is a researcher at the Botany Department of the Natural History Museum of Crete and curator of the Vascular Plant Collection. As a botanist, specialised in Greek flora, he contributed to the BIOTALENT botanical course content with his expertise as well as with his experience in face-to-face and e-learning.
	Gergely Babocsay has a PhD in Biology and is the curator of the Collection of Vertebrates of the Mátra Museum of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. He is a herpetologist and an expert in taxonomy, ecology and conservation. He taught at the Károly Róbert University College, Gyöngyös, Hungary and contributed considerablly to shaping the BIOTALENT educational content.
	Zoltán Barina, PhD, is a botanist and the curator of the Vascular Plant Collection in the Hungarian Natural History Museum. He studies the Balkan and Carpathian flora and biogeography. Asked about BIOTALENT, he highlighted that BIOTALENT provided him a great opportunity to incorporate first-hand results of his scientific research in the course content.
	Petros Lymberakis, PhD, is the curator of Vertebrates in the Natural History Museum of Crete. He studies aspects of ecology of small vertebrates in the Eastern Mediterranean and is actively engaged in nature protection, management and politics. He translated his extensive experience into educational content.
	Iasmi Stathi is a member of the teaching staff of the School of Sciences and Engineering of the University of Crete and a researcher and environmental educator at the Museum of Natural History Crete with a PhD in Biology. She is involved in the elaboration of the attended component of the BIOTALENT course on the island of Crete.
	Isabella Van de Velde has a PhD in Zoology and is affiliated with the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Brussels. She was involved in various EU-funded projects related to training in taxonomy and biodiversity and delivered training in collections conservation and management. Till 2017 she managed the Distributed European School of Taxonomy. She is the BIOTALENT project coordinator and as a biologist contributed to the course content.
	Judit Vörös, PhD, is the curator of the Herpetology Collection at the Hungarian Natural History Museum. As an expert of amphibian and reptile taxonomy, ecology, conservation and population genetics, she contributed to the course educational content. Besides her job as curator and researcher she teaches herpetology and taxonomy regularly in universities across Hungary.

**Pedagogical methodology**
	Panagiotes Anastasiades, PhD, is the Professor of e-learning in the Department of Primary Education of the University of Crete and head of the ‘eLearning Lab’ (www.edivea.org). As an e-educator expert he is responsible for the BIOTALENT course curriculum built on the innovative Inquiry Based Learning methodology.
	António Casal, MSc, is a biology and geology teacher at the Escola Secundária Frei Rosa Viterbo, Sátão and a teacher supervisor at the EduFor Training Centre in Mangualde, Portugal. He contributed to the BIOTALENT course design and the course assessment tools.
	Tine Geunis. Since her PGD in Science Communication, she has been passionate about sharing scientific knowledge and teaching critical thinking. She follows this calling in her role as educator at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, where she employs an impressive collection of dinosaur fossils as a main tool. As a co-developer of the BIOTALENT course, she will guide you, the learners, throughout your BIOTALENT journey.
	Catherina Voreadou has a PhD in Hydrobiology and is Head of Education at the Natural History Museum of Crete - University of Crete. She is responsible for the development of the face-to-face and e-learning courses of the Centre for Environmental Training of the Natural History Museum of Crete. For the BIOTALENT course, she elaborated the Inquiry Based Learning approach.

**Technical development of the e-learning platform**
	Giannis Fragiadakis, MSc, is the Technical Director of the Networks and Communications Unit of the University of Crete. His interests are advanced telecommunication services, communication networks, distributed systems, and data center services. His services ensure the functionality and design backup procedures of the e-learning platform.
	Ophelia Neofytou, MSc, is a member of the Networks and Communications Unit of University of Crete. She is a computer engineer, focused on software development, especially regarding academic e-services such as e-Learning and video services. She is involved in the design and hosting of the e-learning platform.
	Carlos Rodrigues is an English language teacher at Escola Secundária de Penalva do Castelo, Portugal, has PhD in Multimedia in Education, and is also active as teacher trainer at EduFor in foreign language didactics, educational technology in learning environments and technology in educational communication. He is the expert behind the BIOTALENT e-learning platform, its architecture and multimedia applications.
	Emmanouil Zouraris, MSc, is a member of Networks and Communications Unit of University of Crete. He is a software engineer designing and implementing e-learning, media and collaboration services, and video services to support institutional, national and European projects. He is involved in the design and hosting of the e-learning platform.

**Communication**
	Ana Casino is the Executive Director of the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities. In this function, she is dedicated to fostering taxonomic research and with her experience in European research projects - often being responsible for communications - she works for public outreach of the BIOTALENT project and the valorisation of its intellectual outputs.
	Karsten Gödderz is a Geographer and Project Assistant at the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities. He is responsible for website management, course registration and communication activities.
	Karin Balilonoso is a Marketing and Communication specialist and works as Communication Assistant at the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities. She joined the BIOTALENT project in April 2019 and is responsible for the BIOTALENT communication, social media and website management.
	Kevin Keyaert is an Environmental Sociologist and Political Scientist by training. Until April 2018, he was the Communications Assistant at the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities handling BIOTALENT's website management and the development of the project's promotional material.
	José Miguel Sousa is the Director of the EduFor Training Centre, Portugal. With his MSc in Mathematics and PGD in School Management he is passionate about education, European projects and technologies. He is the mentor of the EduFor Innov@tive Classroom Lab. With his experience he contributes to the BIOTALENT community outreach.