NIH Women in Data Science | Data Science at NIH

September 2020: To celebrate Dr. Susan Gregurick’s one-year anniversary as Associate Director for Data Science and Director, Office of Data Science Strategy, we spoke with 11 women who are significantly impacting our data science activities at NIH on how they enable data science at NIH; advice they have for young, aspiring, women data scientists; and what data science accomplishments make them proud. Gregurick wrote a guest blog post for the National Library of Medicine Director’s “Musings from the Mezzanine,” and full profiles of the women featured are below.

Collaboration was a common theme when discussing accomplishments, along with the role NIH has played in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also heard about the importance of having a mentor, the four antidotes to challenging times, and the necessity of diverse perspectives.

“Togetherness means collaboration that harnesses the power and strength of a diverse team. At NIH, women are using their expertise in data science and their teamwork skills to rapidly enable transformative programs.” --Dr. Susan Gregurick

March 2021: Gregurick delivered a lecture titled "Women Leading the Way: Stories of the Women (and Men) Making an Impact on Data Science at NIH" for the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology's "Women Leaders in Academic Research" series. We interviewed four more women to update this Women's History Month-themed lecture and added fun facts to the existing profiles.

Meet some of the women making an impact on data science at NIH:

Laura Biven, Ph.D.
Data Science Technical Lead
Office of Data Science Strategy

Jennifer Couch, Ph.D.
Chief, Structural Biology and Molecular Applications Branch
National Cancer Institute

NIH Citizen Science Coordinator

Valentina Di Francesco
Lead Program Director, Computational Genomics and Data Science Program
National Human Genome Research Institute

Co-lead for the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability effort

Allissa Dillman, Ph.D.
Engagement and Outreach Lead
Office of Data Science Strategy

Leads NIH codeathons and runs the Data Science for Science Teachers Boot Camp

Lisa Federer, Ph.D.
Data Science and Open Science Librarian
Office of Strategic Initiatives, National Library of Medicine

Leads the NIH Data Science Training Committee

Michelle Heacock, Ph.D.
Health Science Administrator, Superfund Research Program
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Co-leads the Joint Repositories Team, which is helping data repositories align with the FAIR and TRUST principles

Jennie Larkin, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Division of Neuroscience, National Institute on Aging

Co-leads the FAIR Data Repositories Team, which ran the one-year NIH Figshare Instance pilot

Jessica Mazerik, Ph.D.
Data Science Workforce Director
NIH Office of Data Science Strategy

Leads the Coding it Forward Civic Digital Fellows at NIH and NIH DATA Scholars programs

Kim Pruitt, Ph.D.
Chief, Information Engineering Branch
National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine

Co-leads the Lifecycle Metrics Working Group, which hosted the Data Metrics Workshop

Rebecca Rosen, Ph.D.
Program Lead, NIMH Data Archive
Senior Advisor, Office of Technology Development and Coordination
National Institute of Mental Health

Leads the Researcher Authentication Service Initiative

Belinda Seto, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
NIH Office of Data Science Strategy

Leads the NIH FHIR Working Group

Heidi Sofia, Ph.D.
Program Director
National Human Genome Research Institute

Co-leads the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative consortium and organized supplements to enhance software tools for open science (NOT-OD-20-073)

Susan Wright, Ph.D.
Program Director for Big Data and Computational Science
National Institute on Drug Abuse

Co-leads the Joint Repositories Team, which is helping data repositories align with the FAIR and TRUST principles

Sarah Yang, M.D.
Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Data Hub Program Director
Office of Data Science Strategy

Maryam Zaringhalam, Ph.D.
Data Science & Open Science Officer
Office of Strategic Initiatives, National Library of Medicine

Organized the Webinar on Sharing, Discovering, and Citing COVID-19 Data and Code in Generalist Repositories

Teresa Zayas Cabán, Ph.D.

Coordinator, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Acceleration
National Library of Medicine