People
Harman, Kehan T.
| Job Title | Database and Collections Officer |
|---|---|
| Department | Herbarium |
| Section | Dicot Systematics |
| Science Teams |
Monocots II: Commelinids |
| Joined Kew | 2004 |
| Foreign Language(s) | French, Afrikaans, siSwati. |
Qualifications & Appointments
BSc, Botany and Microbiology, Rhodes Univ. (RSA), 1999
BSc (Hons), Botany, Rhodes University, 2000.
Computing Group, Kew Herbarium.
Role
Interactive identification systems and checklists for grasses; systematics and Biodiversity Informatics.
Contributing to the World Grass Species project (GrassBase – http://www.kew.org/data/grassbase/ and managing/developing Kew’s grass (Poaceae/Gramineae) databases, which include expert taxonomic and descriptive databases; redevelopment of web pages relating to these databases, involving making 10,800 species descriptions available to the scientific community and general public. Also developing an interactive key associated with these databases and assisting with the generation of descriptions for all grass genera. Pursuing a part time MSc in Bioinformatics with the aim of developing analytical, database and programming skills for this role. Contributing to the Commelinid Monocot’s curation team, dealing with incoming and outgoing herbarium specimens and any databasing that is associated with this process. Involvement in the iPlants project and examining scenarios in which a Global plant checklist could be used. Also considered means of optimising Herbarium specimen based conservation assessments for this project and presented preliminary findings at the 17th International Botanical Congress in Vienna.
Projects
World Grass Species Databases (GrassBase)
Selected Publications 2001-2005
Clayton, W.D., Harman, K.T. & Williamson, H. (2002 onwards). World Grass Species: Descriptions, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Available at www.kew.org/data/grassbase/
Clayton, W.D., Harman, K.T. & Williamson, H. (2002 onwards). World Grass Species: Synonymy. Available at www.kew.org/data/grassbase/
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.
Selected Publications pre-2001