BIS Staff profiles

Janet Imlach - Manager
Janet started her career in agriculture moving on to horticulture and retailing. Having gained a BSc in Ecology and an MSc in Vegetation Surveying she worked as a botanical surveyor in Scotland and then the south of England for 3 years. In 2001 she joined the North East Scotland Environmental Record Centre (a pilot LRC similar to BIS) as Biological Recorder. In 2004 Janet took over from Adam Rowe as manager of BIS. Janet is responsible for the day-to-day running of BIS, including finance, personnel, and strategic planning. Key contact for current and potential partner services, and data exchange with local recorders and other data providers. Can also advise on using Recorder 2002 and Recorder 6 for entering biological records.

Michelle Wienhold - Data Officer
Michelle graduated from the University of Iowa in 2000 with a BA in Anthropology. Before moving to the UK, she worked for 7 years as a field archaeologist in the Midwest and Southwest United States. Her primary responsibilities included using GIS to study and analyse archaeological datasets and managing data collection in the field. Michelle completed her MSc. in GIS and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in 2008. Her main research interests include erosion, hydrological and predictive modelling, applied cartography and LiDAR analysis. Michelle joined BIS in May 2009. Michelle is responsible for the BIS spatial species and habitat datasets. Key contact for partner and other GIS analysis and predictive modelling projects.

Anna Georgiou - Biodiversity Information Officer
Anna gained a Masters degree in Conservation and Land Management from the University of Wales, Bangor. Shortly after, she became Reserve Warden for The Northmoor Trust in Oxfordshire before moving back to Wales as a ranger in the Elan Valley. She started work with The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales in 2005, as reserve manager at the Trust’s headquarters reserve. After becoming a mum, she changed roles to become the Wildlife Advisory Officer. This involved carrying out contract surveys for the Trust’s wildlife consultancy and giving wildlife advice to landowners and the public. Anna joined BIS in May 2008 and works four days per week. Anna is the key contact for all standard commercial and partner biodiversity information enquiries. She is also responsible for Local Authority development control and Forestry Commission grant application searches.

Phil Ward - Biodiversity Recording Officer

Phil  has been  a wildlife professional for over 20 years and is an enthusiastic entomologist. From 1992, he worked as a Countryside Ranger in the Elan Valley for 13 years, and the last 3 years as the Wildlife Trust Officer for Carmarthenshire and the Teifi Marshes Reserve where he managed 13 nature reserves. Phil has extensive survey experience in all invertebrate groups, is County Beetle Recorder for Radnorshire, and secretary of the Radnorshire Invertebrate Group. He also specialises in bird surveys, is a licensed bird ringer, and has a good knowledge of plants and many other groups. Phil joined BIS in May 2008 and works 2 days per week. Phil’s main role is to support the local biological recording community. He also assists with data entry, verification and validation. Key contact for BIS recorders newsletter, training and field recording days. Can also advise on entering biological records into Mapmate.

Piotr Ged - Information Technology Officer

Piotr graduated from Wroclaw University of Technology in 2008 with a MSc in Computer Science. Before moving to UK he worked nearly three years for a consultancy company based in United States. His primary responsibilities were creation and support of web based applications (JSF/Webshpere/DB2) mainly written in Java, working with legacy mainframe (iSeries/AS400) systems, research and utilizing of open source technologies for company and customer needs. Piotr main interest is making life easier by forcing all sorts of fancy technologies to help with every day problems. Piotr joined BIS in September 2009. He is responsible for IT infrastructure as well as software support and development. You should contact Piotr if you have any IT related question, or if you want to buy him an apple pie.