Bert Hoeksema is senior researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, at Leiden. He has been involved in coral reef research in Southeast Asia since 1983: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam. He was organizer of various marine biodiversity expeditions.

His research interests concern coral taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, and ecology, with a focus on the inter-specific associations of coral reef organisms, and their importance in coral reef conservation. He was based in Makassar for his PhD research (1984-1986) on onshore-offshore distribution patterns of mushroom corals in the Spermonde Archipelago and as field coordinator (1995-1998) for an inter-disciplinary coastal zone programme of UNHAS and various Dutch universities and institutes, which was funded by WOTRO Science for Global Development (Netherlands Organisation of Research). At present he is also active as coral reef researcher in the Dutch Caribbean and as coordinator of Caribbean research for Naturalis.

Naturalis Biodiversity Center is the national museum of natural history of the Netherlands. It has public exhibits and it is a scientific institute with a focus on collection-based research. Field research by its more than 100 scientists and collection managers is predominantly carried out in SE Asia, the Caribbean, and Brazil.

Website (s): https://science.naturalis.nl/en/people/scientists/bert-hoeksema/                    https://science.naturalis.nl/en/research/