Mr Kehan Harman BSc(Hons) MSc

Biography

                                                                                                      Kehan's Personal Website / Blog

Employment history

• Database and Collections Officer, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Feb 2005 - Jan 2008: Managing and developing Kew's grass synonymy and DELTA descriptive databases, and helping to make them web accessible (see bioinformatics skills below). Included developing a prototype web portal for my M.Sc. research project (see above). Standardising nomenclature database according to TDWG content standards.
• Global Checklist Project Officer - Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. May 2004 - Jan 2005: Digitisation of herbarium specimens, help with preparation of preliminary conservation assessments and data analysis and help during preparation of nal report for iPlants pilot project.
• Office Manager & New Media Consultant - Firoco Chartered Marketers, Wimbledon. Jan - May 2004: Management of customer relationship management databases for our clients, general office administration and development of marketing materials including html emails and websites including company website http://www.firoco.co.uk.
• Volunteer - Loggerhead Turtle Conservation Project, Katelios, Kefalonia, Greece. June - Aug 2002: Assisted in monitoring the reproducive biology of Caretta caretta. Helped develop community based conservation through public education and helped develop a project website.
• Game Ranger - Mala Mala Games Reserve, Kruger Park, South Africa. Jan - Sep 2001: Duties included all aspects of hosting international guests at a 5 star private game reserve, including catering, bar-keeping, waitering and housekeeping as well as being solely responsible for guests needs and Guiding during meals and game drives throughout the day.

Qualifications

• M.Sc. in Bioinformatics (77%). 2005-2007. Modules including Perl & Java Programming, Bioinformatics Algorithms & Tools, Statistics, Database Management (MySQL & Oracle). Group project in software engineering. Research project: GrassBase - Steps toward integrarting the Online World Grass Flora. Involved developing a Drupal based Grass portal for integration of Kew's institutional grass databases.
• B.Sc.Hons in Botany. 2000: Options: Advanced Systematics, African Phytogeography, Molecular Ecology and Climate Change. Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
• B.Sc. in Botany and Microbiology. 1997-1999: Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

Professional Roles

External collaborations

• Working with the the Global Bees Checklist Working Group to help maintain the Global Bees Checklist through the site Global bees
• Collaborative programming working on the Global Names Architecture.
• Helping to maintain updates to GrassBase.

Research

Interests

Biodiversity informatics, identification systems & systematics.

Scratchpads

Work on developing the online collaborative taxonomic content management framework.

GBIF Standards Data Provider

Maintainer and developer of the GBIF Standards Data Provider website.

Publications

Publications

2008

• Mayo, S. J., Allkin, R., Baker, W., Blagoderov, V., Brake, I., Clark, B., Govaerts, R., Godfray, C., Haigh, A., Hand, R., Harman, K., Jackson, M., Kilian, N., Kirkup, D.W., Kitching, I., Knapp, S., Lewis, G.P., Malcolm, P., von Raab-Straube, E., Roberts, D.M., Scoble, M., Simpson, D.A., Smith, C., Smith, V.S., Villalba, S., Walley, L., Wilkin, P. (2008) Alpha e-taxonomy: responses from the systematics community to the biodiversity crisis Kew Bulletin 63: 1-16. Kew Bulletin | 10.1007/s12225-008-9014-1
• Paton, A.J., Brummitt, N.,  Govaerts, R., Harman, K., Hinchcliffe, S., Allkin, R. Nic Lughadha, E. (2008) Towards Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: a working list of all known plant species—progress and prospects Taxon 57(2): 602-611. Taxon

2007

• Harman, K.T., Clayton, W.D. (2007) Recent developments in Kew's grass databases (GrassBase) Kew Bulletin 62: 375-379.

2006

• Clayton, W.D., Harman, K.T. & Williamson, H. (2006) World Grass Species: Descriptions, Identification, and Information Retrieval.. World Grass Species: Descriptions, Identification, and Information Retrieva
• Clayton, W.D., Harman, K.T., Williamson, H. (2006) World Grass Species: Synonymy.. World Grass Species: Synonymy.
• Wilkins, K.J., Harman, K.T. & Villet, M.H.. (2006) Recruitment behaviour in the ponerine ant, Plectroctena mandibularis F. Smith (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). African Entomology 14(2): 367-372.

2002

• Barker, N.P., Harman, K.T., Ripley, B.S., Bond, J (2002) The genetic diversity of Scaevola plumieri (Goodeniaceae), an indigenous dune coloniser, as revealed by Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) Fingerprinting. South African Journal of Botany 68: 532-541. South African Journal of Botany