Ian Engelbrecht

Ian Engelbrecht is an associate researcher with the University of Pretoria, with an interest in taxonomy and conservation of mygalomorph spiders, scorpions, and other invertebrates. He completed a PhD on trapdoor spiders in 2015, and an MSc in Conservation Biology at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2005. He has previously worked at the Agricultural Research Council Biosystematics Division, Gauteng Nature Conservation, and the private sector. He also has an interest in information systems and how they may be leveraged to better answer conservation and biodiversity related questions, and is currently employed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute working on collections digitization for natural history museums. He has described four new species of spiders to date, and coordinates the Baboon Spider Atlas and ScorpionMap citizen science projects.