Kevin R. Thiele is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Western Australia^[1] and the director of Taxonomy Australia.^[2] He was the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium from 2006 to 2015.^[3][2] His research interests include the systematics of the plant families Proteaceae, Rhamnaceae and Violaceae, and the conservation ecology of grassy woodland ecosystems.^[3] He also works in biodiversity informatics,^[3] developing and teaching the development of interactive multi-access keys,^[4][5][6][7] and has been involved in the design of software for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.^[3]

He obtained a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1993, and has since published many papers, notably a treatment of the Rhamnaceae for the Flora of Australia series of monographs,^[3] and, with Pauline Ladiges, a taxonomic arrangement of Banksia.^[8] In 2007 he collaborated with Austin Mast to transfer Dryandra to Banksia.^[9] More recently, he has worked on pollination systems,^[10] taxonomy,^{[11][12][13][14]} vegetation dynamics,^[15][16] and described further new species.^[17][18]

He has contributed over 2000 images to Wikipedia Commons of Western Australian plants and weeds.^[19]