TAB Elections 2023 Candidate Details

The Technical Advisory Board (TAB) provides technical expertise and advice to Council, and assists in the development, review and promotion of RDA Working & Interest Groups and Communities of Practice.

RDA holds annual elections for TAB membership. The following 10 individuals are candidates for the upcoming 2023 TAB election where 7 seats on TAB are open for election. This includes 1 new seat to increase the number of TAB members (for a 3-year term) and 2 seats for 1 year (until end 2024) to fill vacancies. 

Voting in this election will open on 21 November 2023 and close on 7 December 2023. All RDA members are eligible and encouraged to vote.  Voting page here.

The candidate statements and details below are listed in alphabetical order of surnames.

After the voting closes, balancing criteria will be applied to make sure TAB continues to ensure geographical balance. The allocation of 1 or 3 year terms will be based on preference expressed by the candidate, if applicable, or those in 6th and 7th place according to the number of votes. For full information on the TAB election process and the balancing criteria, please visit see the TAB Responsibilities and Processes document (PDF).

Download the list of candidates and their full statements 

Dr Rossella Aversa

Organization Name
KIT-SCC

Professional Title
Researcher

I got a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS) in Trieste (Italy) in 2015. In the same town, I finalized my studies with a Master in High Performance Computing (MHPC) in 2016, and I worked as a postdoc at the National Council of Research - Istituto di Officina dei Materiali (CNR-IOM) for three years, acquiring experience in machine learning techniques applied to nanoscience and in research data management. I currently work in the Data Exploitation Methods group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe (Germany). I'm coordinating the Metadata Management activities and leading the Virtual Access in the European project Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis Europe Pilot (NEP). I'm leading the Metadata Working Group in the Joint Lab "Integrated Model and Data Driven Materials Characterization" (MDMC) of the Helmholtz Association. I'm member of the Task Area Materials Data Infrastructure of the NFDI-MatWerk Consortium.

As I've done for two years, I would like to contribute to TAB with my expertise on data and metadata management, especially in the Materials Science domain.

Dr Daniel Bangert

Organization Name
4TU.ResearchData

Professional Title
Librarian

Dr Daniel Bangert is Director of 4TU.ResearchData, an international data repository for science, engineering and design, based in the Netherlands. I have a background in open science and research data across a range of national and institutional contexts, including working in Ireland on national open science policy and coordination as National Open Research Coordinator, and positions in Germany and Australia supporting open science in European projects and academic libraries. My research background is in musicology, digital humanities, and information management. Previous Board experience includes serving on the Board of the Council for National Open Science Coordination (CoNOSC) and the governance bodies of Ireland's National Open Research Forum (NORF).

My involvement in the RDA includes supporting RDA Europe and its network of national nodes from 2018 to 2020, contribution to Secretariat, and serving as co-chair of the National PID Strategies WG from 2021 to 2023. Further RDA contributions include the Libraries for Research Data IG (Top 10 FAIR data and software things) and the CODATA-RDA Schools for Research Data Science (data steward school). 

Read Daniel's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Dr Louise Bezuidenhout

Organization Name
Leiden University

Professional Title
Senior Researcher

I am a social science researcher who specializes on issues relating to Open Science, data sharing and access. My work is broadly oriented around themes such as justice and access, inclusion and marginalization and equity. Much of my work to date has concentrated on identifying ways to improve the inclusion of low/middle-income country researchers into the Open Science landscape. As a South African, I am passionate about the potential for Open Science to advance truly global research. I feel that my areas of specialty would be complimentary to the work of TAB, in particular being able to contribute to the support of the growing number of IGs and WGs focusing on the social sciences, ethics and training.

I am a long-standing member of the RDA and have been an active member of a number of IGs and WGs. In particular, I have been involved in the CODATA-RDA Schools for Research Data Science since their 2016 launch, and have been a co-chair since 2018. I have also recently served as the co-chair of the RDA Organizational Assembly. This year I have been an active member of the RDA TIGER project, working to provide support services to RDA WGs.

Read Louise's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Dr Marek Cebecauer

Organization Name
J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague

Professional Title
Researcher

My scientific career has been interdisciplinary ever since I started experimenting in my father's laboratory. The central theme has always been the human immune system, encompassing biochemistry, molecular and clinical immunology. More recently, I've incorporated biophysical approaches and the development of tools utilizing two-dimensional nanomaterials.

In 2021, I joined the RDA, and a year later, I was appointed as the RDA/EOSC Future Ambassador for the Materials Sciences and Engineering Domain. I am an active member of all relevant Interest Groups (IGs) and Working Groups (WGs). Currently, I am contributing to the establishment of three new WGs focused on harmonizing standards and tools for research data management. In the Czech Republic, I serve as the founding chair of the Czech EOSC WG for Materials Sciences and Engineering, bringing together like-minded enthusiasts dedicated to advancing FAIR data and Open Science principles in a community that has historically been less engaged. Through my extensive involvement in the RDA (participation in plenaries and WGs) and EOSC Task Forces, I also spearhead the automation of data management processes in the Czech research data ecosystem.

Read Marek's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Dr Romain David

Organization Name
ERINHA AISBL (European Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents)

Professional Title
Researcher

I am a researcher and data steward at ERINHA (European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents). My professional rôle is to develop good data management practices, to implement data catalogs and FAIR-compliant data resources in the framework of ERINHA, an European Research Infrastructure federating Biosafety Level 4 laboratories.

My work concerns large-scale interoperation of observation and experimentation systems coupled with information systems (before on terrestrial and marine (agro)ecosystems, now in health sciences with a focus on pathogenic agents). This includes the dissemination of life science knowledge and data sharing practices for meta-analyses. I am particularly interested in new methods of data mining and data representation in the form of graphs to analyze heterogeneous data, and in metadata schemas, data annotation, data quality and semantic interoperability topics. I am also a FAIR data management and open science addict and "Data Management Plan with FAIR Compliance" evangelizer.

Read Romain's full statetement in the pdf list of candidates

Dr Anupama Gurujaj

Organization Name
NIH/NIAID

Professional Title
Program Officer

Dr Laurel Haak

Organization Name
Mighty Red Barn

Professional Title

CEO / Managing Director / Chief Executive

Laure Haak (she/they) is an entrepreneur, strategist, researcher, and author. She enjoys working with communities to weave compelling stories and create collaborative spaces that inspire sharing, trust, and transparency. Her practice areas are socio-tech entrepreneurship, research infrastructure, nonprofit governance, decision frameworks, and product strategy.

Laure is the CEO and Founder of Mighty Red Barn <https://mightyredbarn.com>, a consultancy that equips non-profits with the strategy and tools to launch tech that benefits communities. She is also a Research Scholar at the Ronin Institute. Her work draws on diverse experiences – workplace, sector, community, travel - including service as founding Executive Director of ORCID; leadership roles at Thomson Reuters, The US National Academies, and Science Magazine; as well as volunteer service on nonprofit Boards and as a SCORE small business mentor.

Read Laure's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Ms Victoria Smith

Organization Name
Digital Research Alliance of Canada

Professional Title
Programme Manager / Project Manager

As Data Governance & Ethics Lead for the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, I lead national work on improving sensitive research data infrastructure, services, and best practices and on research data governance more broadly. I contribute expertise on data governance, data ethics, sensitive data, and research ethics to a broad variety of services and initiatives. My academic background is in ethics and philosophy, and I'm involved in organizational work on Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Accessibility and on Indigenous Data Sovereignty. In the past, I've conducted health research ethics review, research contract negotiation, privacy review, and research policy analysis.

I've generated national buy-in and broad support for complex work related to sensitive data by understanding and addressing the needs of a wide variety of impacted and involved parties. I excel at developing effective messaging and communications strategies. As a lateral thinker, I see possible connections and transform them into opportunities and solutions by drawing from a variety of information sources and working relationships. As a member of TAB, I will use these skills to support how we conceive and talk about the activity of the WGs and IGs (e.g. mapping and clustering activities), working to maximize the effectiveness of WG/IG activity, identifying overlaps and gaps in activity and functionality, and proposing actions to mitigate gaps and overlaps. In my current role, I've succeeded in creating and sustaining national engagement on sensitive research data management, and will use these skills to contribute to TAB engagement with RDA bodies and membership, and with RDA Working Groups and Interest Groups.

Read Victoria's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Dr Mingfang Wu

Organization Name
Australian Research Data Commons

Professional Title
Senior Research Data Specialist

I joined RDA in 2014, and since then, I have been actively involved in various roles. I have co-chaired three groups, namely the Data Discovery Paradigms Interest Group (DDP IG), the Research Metadata Schemas Working Group (RMS WG), and the Data Versioning Interest Group (DV IG). While co-chairing the DDP IG, I collaborated with other co-chairs and members to deliver three supporting outputs. Additionally, I led the spin-off of the RMS WG from a task force of the DDP IG, resulting in one RDA recommendation and one supporting output. I also contributed to two supporting outputs from the Data Versioning Working Group.

From 2020 to 2023, I served as an active member of the TAB (Technical Advisory Board). This experience has been rewarding, allowing me to support fellow members, working groups/interest groups, and the organisation as a whole. I have a deep appreciation for the RDA as a community organisation that unites individuals from diverse technical, skill, and cultural backgrounds to address common challenges in open research. As a community, we provide mutual support and strive for consistent practices and understandings to enhance open research data infrastructures.

Read Mingfang's full statement in the pdf list of candidates

Download the list of candidates and their full statements 

Voting page