Scott Loarie &
Ken-ichi Ueda

Scott Loarie, Ph.D., and Ken-ichi Ueda developed iNaturalist, considered the largest citizen science project in the world. iNaturalist’s open-source platform connects people of all backgrounds and ages to nature, allowing the collection of biodiversity data to scale like never before.  

iNaturalist annually captures species information that formerly took decades to census, providing researchers a powerful, real-time tool for understanding how biodiversity is responding to rapid environmental changes. Observations from a global community of millions of nature enthusiasts and hundreds of thousands of expert naturalists and researchers together crowdsource one of the world's largest biodiversity databases, informing conservation priorities, measuring restoration success and acting as an early warning system for invasive species. Additionally, the wealth of information in the form of uploaded photos provides valuable insights into species traits and interactions.  

Each year, dozens of new species are first identified through iNaturalist observations. To date, over 200 million observations have been logged, contributing to publications on the discovery of new species, range shifts, species rediscovery, species response to climate change and more.  

Community members have observed 469,000 of the 2 million named species on Earth, including two-thirds of the named vertebrates. Hundreds of thousands of expert naturalists on the platform help curate and identify contributions. Observations that meet research-grade criteria are submitted to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, a pipeline of data that tracks over 100 thousand biodiversity datasets.  

By 2030, iNaturalist is poised to ignite a global movement for biodiversity, driving a net positive trend for the planet.