Biographical sketches for the 16 candidates in alphabetical order are as follows:
Nesrine Akkari (Austria; Myriapoda)
Nesrine Akkari is a Tunisian zoologist and the curator of the Myriapoda collection at the Natural History Museum Vienna, also a guest lecturer at the University of Vienna, Department of Evolutionary Biology. Her training at the University of Tunis (Msc and PhD) and the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen (Postdoc) has led to her zoological studies, with a taxonomic focus on Myriapods. Akkari’s research integrates various approaches to studying the systematics of myriapods, combining standard taxonomic methods, modern applications and molecular data. She regularly publishes on the taxonomy, integrative systematics, phylogeny and evolutionary history of Myriapoda. She has described several species new to science and authored around 100 peer-reviewed publications. Dr Akkari is the editor in chief of the Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museum in Wien and a subject-editor for several other journals publishing on taxonomy, such as the European Journal of Taxonomy, African Invertebrates and ZooKeys. She is currently the vice-president of the International Society for Myriapodology.
Tracy Aze (United Kingdom; Micropalaeontology)
Tracy Aze is an English zoologist and Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Plymouth, UK, and also acts as the Chair of the Neogene and Quaternary Planktonic Foraminifera Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. She obtained her Ph.D. from Cardiff University, where she also did her first post-doc, followed by a research fellowship at the University of Oxford and a faculty position at the University of Leeds for 10 years. She ultimately joined the University of Plymouth in 2024. Dr Aze’s research is at the interface of palaeobiology and palaeoclimatology. Using the marine plankton fossil record, she investigates evolutionary trends and the interactions between species and the response of organisms to environmental change. Dr Aze is a member of editorial committees for the journals Marine Micropaleontology and Palaios, and sis on the Advisory Board for Mikrotax, the leading digital taxonomic resource for marine microfossils.
Mario Cupello (Brazil; Coleoptera)
Mario Cupello is a Brazilian entomologist currently working as an assistant curator at the Texas A&M University Insect Collection (Texas, USA). He graduated with his M.Sc. in Biological Sciences (Zoology) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2016) and his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences (Entomology) at the Federal University of Paraná (2022). He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers, including important monographs. He has a keen interest in systematic entomology (with a main emphasis on Coleoptera), and in the theory, practice, history, and philosophy of systematics and evolutionary biology. Dr Cupello is also interested in zoological nomenclature, having 15 peer-reviewed papers focused on nomenclatural issues (including five Cases published in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature and a proposed revision of Article 8 on electronic publications). He is one of the coordinators of the Taxonomic Catalogue of the Brazilian Fauna, one of the world’s most ambitious faunistic inventory projects, which involves 800 specialists worldwide and countless nomenclatural issues to be solved.
Gimo Daniel (South Africa; Coleoptera)
Gimo M. Daniel is a Mozambican entomologist currently working as Principal Museum Scientist at the National Museum in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Following an interest in entomology and zoological nomenclature, which were sparked during his high school years in Mozambique, he received a B.Sc. from Universidade Pedagógica, Mozambique (2010), an M.Sc. from Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, Brazil (2014), and a Ph.D. from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2019). He has extensive training in biosystematics and evolutionary entomology, and his research focuses mainly on dung beetles and related scarab beetles, employing both molecular and morphological data to address taxonomic and nomenclatural stability within these groups. He has published 42 papers and book chapters and described 23 new taxa. He has also been involved in the Linz Zoocode Committee, an experience which gave him a deep insight in the problems of nomenclature.
Michael Engel (United States of America; Paleontology)
Michael S. Engel is an American zoologist and research associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA, where he studies the systematics and evolution of insects, including fossils. While he has developed expertise on the taxonomy, phylogenetics and historical biogeography of several groups of insects over the last 30 years, he has a special interest in bees (Hymenoptera), earwigs (Dermaptera) and termites (Isoptera). Dr. Engel has authored books for a broad range of audiences (e.g., Evolution of the Insects [2005], Innumerable Insects [2018]) and several hundred scientific articles. He led a multi-authored and influential article promoting the need for greater support for taxonomists globally (Engel et al., 2021: The taxonomic impediment: a shortage of taxonomists, not the lack of technical approaches). His long interest in zoological nomenclature has resulted in publications on the family-group names of various taxa as well as proposals for the permanent resolution of nomenclatural problems in Cases published in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. He also taught the fundamentals of zoological nomenclature to many students, particularly as part of a course on Principles of Systematics. Dr Engel is a member of the editorial board of numerous journals, such as Current Biology, Frontiers in Insect Science and ZooKeys: Global Taxon Reviews.
Ronald Fricke (Germany; Ichthyology)
Ronald Fricke is a German ichthyologist and has been serving as Senior Curator of Fishes at the Zoology Department, Ichthyology, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany, since 1988. He has conducted a wide range of taxonomic research on Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific marine fishes and has authored 395 peer-reviewed journal publications, nine books as sole author, and seven books with multiple authors. He has established 195 new species-group taxa, 11 new genus-group taxa, and eight new family-group taxa. In 2008, he published an authoritative article (Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde (A) Neue Serie 1:1-76) on the authorship, availability, and validity of fish names described by Forsskål and Fabricius in 1775 (Pisces). Dr Fricke has been editor of Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes since 2008. Since then, he has examined every new (and many old) taxonomic publication on fishes to determine the status and assess the stability of the names of fishes.
Stephen Gaimari (United States of America; Diptera)
Stephen D. Gaimari is an American/Italian entomologist with particular expertise on Diptera. Steve obtained his Ph.D. in Entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1998) and has more than three decades of experience as a taxonomist. Steve has a strong interest in the historical aspects of the field, and he has extensive experience with nomenclature, including serving as President of the American Association for Zoological Nomenclature (2013–2017) and as member of the ICZN Digital Business Model Group (an advisory committee exploring the long-term perpetuation of the ICZN). Steve is President of the Dipterists Society (since 2019) and a Councilor of the International Congresses of Dipterology (since 2010). He has extensive editorial experience as editor-in-chief of 'Fly Times' (since 2007) and its 'Supplement' series (since 2017), and subject editor for Zootaxa (since 2012), Annals of the Entomological Society of America (2002–2013) and The Pan-Pacific Entomologist (2004–2006). In addition, he is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (elected, 2002) and the Royal Entomological Society (elected, 2023).
Daniel Lauretta (Argentina; Cnidaria)
Daniel Marcelo Lauretta is an Argentine research taxonomist focused on Cnidaria (especially sea anemones and corals), using both morphological and molecular data. He studied at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he obtained his B.Sc. in Biological Sciences in 2007, and his Ph.D. in 2012. Since 2016, he is a Researcher at CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council), working at the “Bernardino Rivadavia” Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Associate Researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA, since 2020. He organizes and participates in field trips including deep-sea expeditions, and he is the leader of research projects on invertebrate diversity in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean and other interdisciplinary projects. As a supervisor, he has trained several students in taxonomy and nomenclature, both undergraduate and Ph.D. levels. He has teaching experience since 2015 at the University of Buenos Aires and other Argentine Universities, as Associate Professor in the “Zoological Nomenclature Course” for Ph.D. candidates and postgraduate researchers, frequently attended by students from several Latin American countries; and he frequently collaborates with colleagues to solve nomenclatural problems. He participates in several forums and discussion-groups on zoological nomenclature, and he is especially interested in how the new Code will address emerging challenges.
Takafumi Nakano (Japan; Hirudinology)
Takafumi Nakano is a Japanese systematic hirudinologist (leeches) specialising in non-blood sucking taxa throughout East and Southeast Asia. Since 2018, he has served as an Associate Professor at Kyoto University where his lab works on the systematics of terrestrial and freshwater invertebrates, including parasitic nematodes, freshwater snails, talitrid amphipods, myriapods and epigeic spiders. To date, Nakano has published over 110 publications describing numerous new species and resolving the taxonomic status of several other species, both in English and Japanese. His work in taxonomy has led Nakano to develop a strong interest for ZooBank, for which he has served as a content editor since 2013, correcting many nomenclatural issues and updating placeholder entries. Nakano has also acted as a ZooBank consultant for several Japanese societies and journals, helping them to switch their journals online and make them ZooBank-compliant. Nakano also serves as an associate editor for Zoological Science and Edaphologia, and he is an editorial consultant for Species Diversity, where he is mainly responsible for ensuring the nomenclatural quality and compliance in those journals.
Rohan Pethiyagoda (Sri Lanka; Ichthyology)
Rohan Pethiyagoda is a Sri Lankan biodiversity scientist and a managing trustee of the Wild Heritage Trust, Sri Lanka. He has worked extensively on the exploration and taxonomic description of species of reptiles, amphibians, and freshwater and marine fishes, being responsible for the discovery of almost 100 new species of vertebrates from Sri Lanka and India, in addition to 43 species of freshwater crabs. He has for 15 years been a research associate of the Australian Museum in Sydney and editor for Asian Freshwater Fishes of Zootaxa. He has authored approximately 100 publications (books, book chapters, papers). He has served as Advisor on Environment and Natural resources to the Government of Sri Lanka, as Deputy Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, as a trustee of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, as a member of the World Commission on National Parks and as a member of the Global Amphibian Specialist Group.
Jurate De Prins (Belgium; Lepidoptera)
Jurate De Prins is a Belgian entomologist who studies moths (Insecta: Lepidoptera) from around the world, with a special interest in species belonging to the family Gracillariidae. She recently participated in taxonomic and phylogenetic projects at the Australian National Insect Collection, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, in Canberra, Australia, and previously spent several years studying moths in Africa. Her taxonomic research has led to the description of nearly 200 new taxa. Dr De Prins has been involved with the journal Phegea (Flemish Entomological Society, Belgium) as editor-in-chief, and she also served for many years and still serves on the editorial board of other journals (e.g., Zootaxa, European Journal of Taxonomy). Dr De Prins uses new technologies to assemble and present large biodiversity datasets in a user-friendly, searchable way, which are made available online and used broadly by the community. She continues to look for opportunities to connect with a broad community of specialists. Recently, she was a science committee member of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility for five years and Chair of the Ebbe Nielsen Challenge for three years. If elected as a new member of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature she will work to further develop the knowledge she has acquired during the production of taxonomic catalogues and as an editor.
Rusłan Sałamatin (Poland; Helminths)
Rusłan Sałamatin is a Ukrainian and Polish researcher focused on the study of helminths, primarily tapeworms (Platyhelminthes, Cestoda). His PhD research, completed in 2001 at the I. I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, was on cestodes of the family Dilepididae. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Warsaw and Associate Professor (Head of Department of Microbiology and Parasitology) at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, both in Warsaw, Poland. He has contributed to several areas of the project ‘A Survey of the Tapeworms (Cestoda: Platyhelminthes) from Vertebrate Bowels of the Earth’, including working on the creation of the Global Cestode Database—aimed at collecting all zoological names of tapeworm species and their primary publications. He is co-author of the ‘Digital Catalogue of Biodiversity of Poland—Animalia: Platyhelminthes: Neodermata’, which is available through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Sałamatin was one of the co-organiser of the ‘10th International Workshop on Cestode Systematics and Phylogeny, 4–10 August 2023, Warsaw, Poland’. He was also involved in preparing the Ukrainian translation of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which was published in 2002. In addition, he has a considerable linguistic background, being fluent in Ukrainian (mother tongue), English, Polish, and Russian. As a taxonomist specializing in parasitic animals, he believes that there are many unresolved issues regarding the names of organisms which are of medical and veterinary importance.
Elie Saliba (France; Nomenclatural Theory)
Elie Mario Saliba is a Lebanese/French systematic biologist with a strong interest in zoological nomenclature and biodiversity informatics, and in particular in the management of nomenclature across different taxonomic databases, including ZooBank. Elie obtained his Ph.D. at Sorbonne Université & Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, with a thesis on 'Understanding and managing Zoological Nomenclature in the era of Big Data and Open Science' (2023) and has been a postdoc under the e-COL+ project (natural history collection and artificial intelligence) at MNHN. He is currently employed by the French node of GBIF. He regularly teaches courses in zoological nomenclature and biodiversity informatics, and he has extensive programming and database management skills. He has produced a free web application (Lognom) based on algorithms that facilitate decision-making in zoological nomenclature.
Glenn Shea (Australia; Herpetology)
Glenn Shea is an Australian herpetologist and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney where he studies the systematics of Australasian and Indopacific reptiles and amphibians. Glenn obtained his PhD in 1992 from the University of Sydney and has been teaching veterinary anatomy since 1985. His research interests are in the systematics and biology of the reptiles and amphibians of the Australasian region, and particularly scincid and pygopod lizards, and typhlopid snakes. He is an honorary research associate of the Australian Museum, and a past honorary associate at the Queensland Museum and Bishop Museum. Dr Shea is also an honorary life member of the Australian Herpetological Society, a member of the Skink Specialist Group of the IUCN, editor of the Australian herpetological journal "Herpetofauna", librarian of the Australian Herpetological Society, past treasurer of the Australian Society of Herpetologists, and past member of the Australasian Reptile and Amphibian Specialist Group of the IUCN. Dr Shea has published 228 research papers and books, including numerous dealing with nomenclatural issues.
Ellen Strong (United States of America; Mollusks)
Ellen Strong is an American malacologist and a Research Zoologist in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA. Ellen graduated with a PhD from The George Washington University in 2000 where she studied the anatomy of living gastropods. After two postdoctoral fellowships at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany, and the Smithsonian Institution, Ellen was employed at the University of Minnesota and Bell Museum of Natural History, before joining the Smithsonian as a Research Zoologist in 2004. She studies the diversity and evolutionary relationships of freshwater and marine snails (Caenogastropoda). Ellen’s research documents and describes the biodiversity of snails, and helps inform how to conserve them, even as some are on the brink of extinction. Ellen has published 92 research papers, three peer-reviewed book chapters and two edited volumes. She is an accomplished morphologist and incorporates molecular sequence data and genomic tools into her research repertoire.
Mark Young (United Kingdom; Paleontology)
Mark Young is a Scottish evolutionary biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist serving as a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, England. Dr Young incorporates an interdisciplinary approach spanning biomechanics, comparative anatomy, neuroanatomy, nomenclature, philosophy of biology, phylogenetics, and systematics/taxonomy to research the evolution of major evolutionary transitions. In particular, Dr Young is interested in understanding how and why the vertebrate body-plan undergoes radical transformations when adapting to new niches. Dr Young is a member of two IUCN Species Survival Commission groups focusing on these taxa, the Crocodile Specialist Group and the Pigeon & Dove Specialist Group. Notably, in 2024, Dr Young published on the systematics and nomenclature of the Dodo and the Solitaire, both of which lack type specimens. Dr Young has authored 87 peer-reviewed journal articles and three book chapters. Many of his publications are taxonomic treatises and several recent papers spawning from the activities of the Linz Zoocode Committee. Dr Young is also the author (or co-author) of 71 zoological names. Mark is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, has a Chartered Biologist status, and from January 2025 is the new editor-in-chief of the journal Historical Biology.