I currently work as the Principal Data Manager for the Royal Horticultural Society, I’m a member of the Horticultural Informatics team within Science and based at RHS Garden Wisley.
Here’s what the RHS website says about me:
Rupert Wilson is RHS Principal Data Manager, Horticultural Informatics and joined us in 2001 after working for several years in the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Reading where he managed the herbarium database. Rupert leads a team of five staff whose diverse roles include the upkeep of the plant records at Wisley, compilation of the RHS Plant Finder, providing training and first line support of the RHS Horticultural Database and ensuring consistency in the data held and publications from across Science.
Plant names are the ‘glue’ that binds all our horticultural information together be it a plant in one of our gardens, an entry in RHS Plant Finder, a Nomenclatural Standard viewed through Global Plants or an entry in RHS Plant Selector. Rupert adds
“striving for greater consistency and increasing the availability of the information we hold in our databases is what drives me on.”
In addition to his work for the RHS, Rupert is a board member on PlantNetwork a network of gardens and arboreta in Britain and Ireland which creates opportunities and training for people to meet and learn through the exchange of information.
Role profile:
Skills:
Data management in the Natural Sciences domain, Horticultural Taxonomy, Living collections management in Botanic Gardens, website design and technologies, Video photography.
April 2005 – current:
Principal Data Manager, Horticultural Informatics team, Science Department, Royal Horticultural Society
Previous roles:
July 2001 – April 2005:
Senior Horticultural Database Administrator, Botany Department at the Royal Horticultural Society
October 1988 – July 2001:
Herbarium Technician in the School of Plant Sciences (now School of Biological Sciences) at The University of Reading