My career started at the University of Ghent in Belgium where I completed my MSc and PhD on meiobenthic diversity and systematics of marine harpacticoid copepods, respectively. During my time in Ghent, I became increasingly fascinated by the diversity of copepods, including planktonic, freshwater and especially parasitic members of this fascinating and hyperabundant group of microcrustaceans. I was amazed by their tremendous variety in body form, shape and mode of life which triggered the question how these morphologically radically divergent lineages are related to each other. In an attempt to answer the question, long before molecularly-based phylogenetic analyses arrived on the scene, it eventually culminated in the publication of Copepod Evolution, co-authored with Geoff Boxshall. In 1992 I joined the Natural History Museum in London where I have been since to undertake research on copepods.

Except for Hammamet (9th ICOC – 2005) I have attended and actively participated in every copepod conference since 1987. In the past, I have served the WAC council as a member of the Executive Council, Vice-President, President and Past-President. I was involved as a tutor in the pre-conference workshops in Taiwan (2002) and Thailand (2008) and acted as organizer for the workshops in Mexico (2011), Thailand (2014), the U.S.A. (2017) and Japan (2024). In addition, I served as tutor during the International Workshops on Symbiotic Copepoda in South Africa (2013), Australia (2016) and Russia (2019). As part of the 2021 virtual International Course on Evolution and Diversity of Meiobenthos (organized by the University Museum of Bergen and Moscow State University) I co-organized a 2-day workshop with Alexandra Savchenko on the taxonomic identification of harpacticoids, including training in using identification keys. In 2022, after the cancelation of the ICOC in South Africa, I co-organized the virtual e-ICOC with Alexandra which attracted unprecedented interest from students. In 2017 I was awarded the WAC Monoculus Award for exceptionally devoted service and contributions to the activities of WAC.

During my MSc I had no mentor to help me in the identification of copepods, so I basically became a self-taught student. Having been through that experience of self-tuition, I realized that there was an urgent need for students to have access to specialized courses on copepod taxonomy although they did not exist at the time. Since copepodology is such a vast research area it is not surprising that it is also fragmented because specialists and students work on different faunas: marine plankton, parasites, groundwater copepods, marine meiofauna, etc. However, WAC and its conferences have provided and continue to provide a forum for communication and interaction, uniting everybody, and through its pre-conference workshops also offers problem-solving activities and support to students.
Teaching students and professionals the methods how to observe, illustrate and describe copepods defines the red line throughout my career and I have devoted much time to it which brought me great satisfaction. I am also proud that some of those colleagues passed on the knowledge to their students (I am particularly thinking of Turkey, South Korea and China where copepod research now thrives) and were very successful in recruiting them so that they became enthused about copepods. Training the next generation is key to the survival and success of WAC – there is no doubt about it. There is a clear need for WAC to prioritize this and show its commitment. As President I will (1) continue to support students by providing them with opportunities so that they can be taught by world experts, (2) prioritize the new student WAC grant-in-aid scheme that was launched in 2023 by the Executive Council, and (3) propose new initiatives that WAC members can benefit from. It is my strong conviction that providing student support and teaching the next generation is paramount to ensuring confidence in WAC.