Donald Hobern

Donald Hobern is an amateur lepidopterist with particular interest in plume moths (Pterophoridae) and many-plume moths (Alucitidae). He has been passionate about natural history since growing up on the Essex coast in the UK.

He studied Classics at university and then worked as a software developer and architect for IBM for 16 years, including several years in the US and in New Zealand. In 2002, he joined the newly-established Secretariat of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in Copenhagen as Programme Officer for Data Access and Data Interoperability. Since then, he has worked internationally as a biodiversity informatics specialist, including leading roles in GBIF, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, the International Barcode of Life Consortium and Catalogue of Life. He now divides his time between work to improve the quality and management of the Catalogue of Life Checklist and to improve data management for crop research data within the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility.

Currently, his primary Lepidoptera interests involve building automated camera traps to collect standardised data on nightly moth numbers and work to fill gaps and correct errors in the Global Lepidoptera Index, a project to build a comprehensive and current listing of all the world’s described moth and butterfly species.