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---
layout: default
title: About
---
<div class="container">
<h1 class="mt-5">{{ page.title }}</h1>
<p class="lead"> The Species File Group </p>
<div class="container">
<p> The Species File Group is an endowed core of researchers and their collaborators whose expertise in software development, standards, data modelling and processing, education and community development is complemented by their biological training in taxonomy (biological systematics), biochemistry, ecology, and natural history collections. Collectively this foundation of cross-domain expertise focuses on biodiversity informatics, a field whose grand challenge is to represent, digitally, the Earth's vast biodiversity, such that all <em>life</em> benefits. Endless facets exist to this challenge, the SFG targets three: indexing the names of Earth's taxa; global aggregation of species lists; and workbenches and tooling capable of handling the breadth of data behind taxonomic circumscriptions and the inseparable related effort to digitize natural history collections.</p>
<p> SFG's answers to these challenges include <a href="https://globalnames.org">GlobalNames</a>, best-in-class (speed, parallelization, implementation) taxon name discovery, parsing, indexing and verification that acts as the low-level engine for a wide-range of software wrappers and applications (e.g. <a href="">Biodiversity Heritage Library</a>), <a href="https://taxonworks.org">TaxonWorks</a>, perhaps the richest integration of biodiversity-based data types within a virtual research environment, and <a href="https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxon_pages">TaxonPages</a>, an easily implementable website-framework for taxon-page based sites. TaxonPages is currently in use for ~100k pages derived from some of the top biodiversity datasets in the world, for example <a href="https://orthoptera.speciesfile.org">Orthoptera Species File</a>, and <a href="https://hoppers.speciesfiel.org">World Auchenorrhyncha Database</a>, each page an example of FAIR data re(use) integrating data standards including those of <a href="https://www.tdwg.org/">BISS (TDWG)</a> and <a href="https://bioschemas.org/">Bioschemas</a>. SFG further serves our communities by hosting software and providing support. A rapidly growing number of small to moderately sized Natural History Collections, notably including the <a href="">INHS Insect Collection</a> are both TaxonWorks' users and key partners in our development cycle catalyzing innovation on UI/UX, human-computer interactions, and open digital specimen fronts.</a>
<p> While all SFG efforts are architected to stand alone our products benefit greatly from internal integration, for example TaxonWorks uses GlobaNames to process and extract nomenclature, CoL is fed data curated and exported from TaxonWorks and GlobalNames indexes CoL for verification and indexing. This integration extends beyond our core products to those around the world. Our efforts strengthen the <a href="https://catalogueoflife.org">Catalogue of Life</a> on <a href="/collaboration#catalogue-of-life">multiple fronts</a>. <a href="https://inaturalist.org">iNaturalist</a> uses our APIs to provide authoritative nomenclature for 10s of thousands species observed, photographed, and loaded to their site. <a href="https://gbif.org">GBIF</a> now contains over 1 million collection object records curated in TaxonWorks.</p>
<p> Socio-technicaly our efforts are highlighted throughout the discussions, both broad and targeted at <a href="https://together.taxonworks.org"> TaxonWorks Together</a>, an annual event attracting well over 250 registrants (please join and contribute). On a unending week-to-week basis our <a href="events.html">weekly support sessions</a>, while focused on SFG core efforts, routinely evolve into discussion of broader topics and needs. These communications, and those on numerous other fronts complement our <a href="collaboration.html#broader-impacts"> broader impacts</a>. </p>
<p> Stepping back our efforts exemplify solutions to broader challenges, and as such represent a broad interface for new and unexplored collaborations. Throughout these efforts we endeavour to produce open-source tools usable in a wide range of contexts, beyond their primary use cases. Our efforts represent cutting-edge examples of data-processing at scale, facilitating global data aggregation (including the socio-technical challenges), data standards and semantics, human-computer interactions and the emerging concepts behind <a href="https://society-rse.org/">Research Software Engineering</a>. Collectively our ability to link real-world data to testable processes pre-adapts us to collaborations in may fields including data visualization, AI training, network-analysis, environmental modelling and more. Please reach out if interested.
</p>
<p> We gauge success primarily by the size and activity of our collaborating community, with research impact, research products, funding, and global impact coming a close second. People make the difference, software and data do not maintain themselves, they need (very) long-term support and we hope to fill a tiny-part of those needs. Throughout our collective efforts, now spanning over 2 decades, we have evolved <a href="docs/sfg_norms.html">community norms</a> that we hope resonate with you as current or potential collaborators. Reach out, and <a href="docs/working_with_sfg.html">work with us</a>!</p>
</div>
<div class="container" id="contact">
<h2> Contact </h2>
<p> Address general questions to our Community Liaison <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Deborah Paul</a> or <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Matt Yoder</a>. Find us in <b>chat</b> on <a href="https://join.slack.com/t/taxonworks/shared_invite/zt-28gmamdox-DHlXN61XPawSM6eGj86Tkw">Slack</a> or <a href="https://matrix.to/#/#taxonworks:gitter.im">Matrix</a>. Adding an issue to one of our many of <a href="https://github.com/orgs/SpeciesFileGroup/repositories" target=_blank>SFG's Github repositories</a> also works. </p>
<p> You may also reach out on social networks. TaxonWorks is on <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/taxonworks.bsky.social"> Bluesky</a>, <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@TaxonWorks">Mastodon</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TaxonWorks">YouTube</a>. GlobalNames is on <a href="https://twitter.com/globalnames">Twitter</a>. Our team have various personal accounts: <a href="https://ruby.social/deck/@mjy">Matt on Mastodon</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/idbdeb">Debbie on Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/debpaul.bsky.social">Debbie on Bluesky</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="container" id="sfg-announce">
<h2> SFG Announce </h2>
<p> <a href="https://lists.illinois.edu/lists/info/sfg-announce">SFG-Announce</a> is a low traffic (1-2/week) email list. Its primary use is to send out reminders of our <a href="events.html#community-consults">Community Consults</a>, information on <a href="events.html#taxonworks-together">TaxonWorks Together</a>, and to provide notices of critical disruptions of SFG resources.
<div class="alert alert-warning" role="alert">Remember to click "confirm" in the first email you get following signing up.</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="container">
<h2 class="mt-6"> People </h2>
<div class="container">
<h4> Founder </h4>
<p> The Species File Group was founded by David Eades, retired. </p>
</div>
<div class="container">
<h4> Core team </h4>
<p> Species File Group members funded in part or whole </p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2639-7520">Deborah Paul</a> </li>
<li> Dmitry Dmitriev </li>
<li> <a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1593-1417">Dmitry Mozzherin</a> </li>
<li> <a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9770-2345">Geoff Ower</a> </li>
<li> Heidi Hopkins </li>
<li> Hernán Pereira </li>
<li> José Luis Pereira </li>
<li> Leslie Deem </li>
<li> Matt Yoder </li>
<li> R. Edward DeWalt </li>
<li> Rich Flood </li>
<li> Yuri Ruskov </li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="container">
<h4> Alumni </h4>
<p> Core team members now retired </p>
<ul>
<li> Beth Frank </li>
<li> David Eades </li>
<li> Jim Tucker </li>
<li> Marilyn Beckman </li>
<li> Mike Maehr</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="container">
<h2> Organization structure</h2>
<p> Nested in the <a href="https://www.inhs.illinois.edu">Illinois Natural History Survey</a> in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, part of the <a href="https://www.prairie.illinois.edu">Prairie Research Institute</a>, the Species File Group has core members and collaborators around the world. </p>
</div>
<div class="container">
<h2> Funding </h2>
<div class="container">
<p>The SFG is funded by an endowment to the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana. The endowment provides a relatively rare environment within the field of biodiversity informatics, i.e. fixed funding for long term research and development. A facet of the endowment, facilitated by the SFG, funds <a href="http://orthsoc.org/">The Orthopterist's Society</a>.
<p >Additional funding has come from grants to PIs of the Core team:</p>
<ul>
<li> DeWalt, Dmitriev, Yoder - NSF CSBR </li>
<li> Yoder - NFS ABI </li>
<li> Dmitriev - NSF GoLife </li>
<li> Mozzherin - NSF ABI </li>
<li> Mozzherin, Yoder - Hathi Trust </li>
<li> Paul - NSF MSB-NES; COVID-19 Research </li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<h2> Site </h2>
<p> This site built using Jekyll and is hosted on Github pages. <a href="https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/speciesfilegroup.github.io">Open an issue or make a PR there.</a> </p>
<p> You can find SFG community logos in the <a href="https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/speciesfilegroup.github.io/tree/main/assets/images/svg_logos">site repository</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>