Samanta Orellana, PhD

Scientific Outreach

Organized Workshops

• Symbiota Portals for the Digitization of Herbaria (in Spanish). Co-organizer. University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, Yale Peabody Museum, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú. October 2025.
• Advanced Tools for the Management of Scientific Collections in the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (in Spanish). Organizer and instructor. University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala City, Guatemala. June 2025.
• Introduction to the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal. Co-organizer and instructor. Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala City, Guatemala. June 2025.
• Interactive Tools for the Study of Guatemalan Biodiversity (virtual, in Spanish). September 2023. Organizer and instructor. Symbiota Support Hub, Arizona State University.
• A Guided Tour of the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (virtual, in Spanish). March 2023. Organizer and instructor. Symbiota Support Hub, Arizona State University.
• Natural History Collections Digitization and Mobilization with Symbiota Portals: Mexican Herbaria Network (virtual, in Spanish). November 2022. Co-organizer and instructor. Mexican Herbaria Network and Arizona State University.
• Natural History Collections Digitization and Mobilization with Symbiota Portals (virtual, in Spanish). September 2022. Organizer and instructor. Symbiota Support Hub, Arizona State University.
• Digitization of Natural History Collections in the Guatemala Biodiversity Symbiota Portal (virtual, in Spanish). August 2022. Organizer and instructor. Symbiota Support Hub, Arizona State University.
• Introduction to Symbiota databases platform: Consortium of Small Vertebrate Collection (virtual, in Spanish). August 2020. Organizer and instructor. Biological Collections System of the School of Biology, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
• Introduction to Symbiota databases platform: ecdysis (virtual, in Spanish). July 2020. Organizer and instructor. Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.

Invited Presentations

• Symbiota Portals (virtual, in Spanish). September 2022. Natural History Collections Management Workshop, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Colombia.
• Digitizing Natural History Collections in Guatemala (virtual, in Spanish). September 2022. Connecting Collections Workshop Series, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
• Publication of Biodiversity data to GBIF from the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (virtual, in Spanish). May 2022. Colegio de Farmacéuticos y Químicos de Guatemala.
• Introduction to the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (virtual, in Spanish). August 2021. Natural History Collections Digitization Workshop, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.
• Symbiota: A platform to mobilize, integrate and use natural history collections data (virtual, in Spanish). April 2021. Webinars Series, Sistema de Información sobre Biodiversidad de Colombia.
• Guatemala Biodiversity Portal: Digitizing the biological collections of the country (virtual, in Spanish). March 2021. Conference Series Women in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Women Who Code, Guatemala.

• Digitization of Biological Collections using the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (virtual, in Spanish). February 2021. Undergraduate Collections Management Course, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.

  Service

• Portal Manager. Weevil Portal. Hosted by the Symbiota Support Hub.(2024-present)
• Portal Manager. Biodiversity of Guatemala Symbiota Portal. Hosted by the Symbiota Support Hub.(2020-present)
• Steering Committee Member. Ecdysis Symbiota Portal. Hosted by the Symbiota Support Hub (2023-present).
• Community Coordinator for Latin America. Symbiota Support Hub, iDigBio.
• Node Delegate. Symbiota Support Hub Node for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (2022-present).
• Mentor. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (2020-present).

Online Resources

Entomology, Taxonomy and Systematics

• Anthribidae of the World Online. Virtual Catalog of Anthribidae generated with TaxonWorks and TaxonPages (2023-present).
• Anthribidae of the World. Website dedicated to share information about the Anthribidae specimens in the O’Brien Collection (2022-present).
• Anthribidae of ASU Biocollections. Digitized and imaged specimens. Updated regularly.
• Anthribidae of KUNHM Collections. Digitized and imaged specimens. Updated regularly.
• Samanta Orellana Research Collection., Digitized and imaged specimens. Updated regularly.
• Insectos de Guatemala. Website to share information about entomology and insect fauna in Guatemala.

Digitization and Mobilization of Scientific Collections

• The Weevil Portal. Symbiota portal focused on the superfamily Curculionoidea (2024-present).
• Guatemala Biodiversity Portal. Symbiota portal for the management of natural history collections in Guatemala (2020-present).
• Guatemala Portal Docs. Documentation site for advanced users of the Guatemala Biodiversity Portal (2020-present).
• Collections Mobilized to GBIF.