Victor Deklerck is a PhD-student at the  of Laboratory of Wood Technology (Ghent University, Belgium). He obtained his master degree in Bioscience Engineering: Forest and Nature Management in 2015 at Ghent University. His PhD research mainly focuses on valorising the Federal Xylarium (wood collection) of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium), more specifically to unlock wood technological (e.g. swelling and shrinkage) and biological (e.g. natural durability) data from the samples stored in the xylarium. Making use of this large reference collection, he also develops methods to identify timber in trade using mass spectrometry in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory. His research concerning timber identification has been published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry (DOI: 10.1002/rcm.7939). In this aspect he functions as a scientific expert for the Global Timber Tracking Network. In his spare time, Victor loves going for hikes, reading books or playing his guitar.