GeoSpecify

GeoSpecify extends Specify for earth science collections, including rocks, minerals, meteorites, cores, and related geosamples. I helped lead this work from requirements through implementation with museum partners and SCC staff, resulting in production capabilities embedded in Specify 7.12 and supported in future releases.

• Co-led technical direction for the GeoSpecify subsystem and translated geoscience workflows into implementable product requirements.
• Participated in intensive in-person requirements workshops across Swiss partner institutions to map geology curation practices into data-model and UX decisions.
• Helped shape major model extensions for heterogeneous geocollections, including Collection Object Groups (COGs), Components, and Collection Object Types (COTs).
• Contributed to integrating these concepts end-to-end in backend processing, APIs, form design, query behavior, UI workflows, and export mappings.
• Supported requirements for geology-specific capabilities such as chronostratigraphic querying, tectonic/geologic context support, hazard tracking, and specialized default forms/pick lists.
• Helped align implementation with legacy institutional practices so collections could preserve existing cataloging protocols while adopting modernized infrastructure.

• GeoSpecify now supports complex compound specimens, enabling linked but distinct identities for components inside a single physical object.
• Collections can manage multiple object types and taxonomic/classification authorities in one database with stronger retrieval and curation patterns.
• Extended age-query workflows now support searching by chronostratigraphic ranges, not only literal age names.

For complete context, see the full public post: From Biodiversity to Earth Science and Beyond with GeoSpecify .