NMDC Champions

NMDC Champions understand and appreciate the value of well-curated data, and are willing to advocate for the importance of FAIR microbiome data.

Featured NMDC Champions

“I believe microbiome data helps us better understand our world and our health. Making this data more accessible and adherent to FAIR data practices would provide opportunities for meaningful analyses that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.”

Alonna Wright

UC Davis, PhD Candidate

Alonna studies agricultural microbiomes with a Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology at the University of California—Davis. Involved with local mentoring and outreach programs, she has a passion for science communication and open-access science.

“I am excited about the potential for microbiome research to improve human health, and I believe we need to improve rigor and reproducibility to achieve that potential.”

Jenny Bratburd

UW Madison, PhD Candidate

Jenny studies human gut microbiota interactions with pathogens and ant-bacteria symbiosis at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. As Policy Engagement Chair for Catalysts for Science Policy, she looks to NMDC to advance forensic science, her own research, and the field overall.

Active NMDC Champions

John-Marc Chandonia (LBNL)

"I became an NMDC Champion because I am interested in collaborating to develop new technologies for managing data. I am particularly interested in solving long-standing challenges in making data truly interoperable and reusable."

Bill Duncan (LBNL)

"I became an NMDC champion because of the great need to develop systems that bring together data from multiple microbiome data repositories. The development of these systems is a truly exciting opportunity to advance an emerging branch of science."

Kai Blumberg (UA)

"I became an NMDC champion for because I want to participate in the creation of a unified and interoperable semantic layer which can be used to join data from different scientific disciplines. As an early career scientist, I'm very excited to potentially play a role in enabling scientists to unify our knowledge and data to better address global scale environmental challenges."

@Kia_Bloomburg

Sean Gibbons (ISB)

"I became an NMDC Champion because I believe that access to usable public data and metadata is a right and not a privilege."

@gibbological

JP Dundore-Arias (CSUMB)

"I became an NMDC Champion because I am excited to be part of this collaborative community developing efforts to increase awareness, access and engagement in the microbiome research community."

@AgMicrobiomes

Ulias Karaoz (LBNL)

"I became an NMDC Champion because as microbiome science shifts from data generation to interpretation, FAIR data is critical to enable integration of global datasets."

@ukaraoz

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