David Elbert

Why sleep when you can think about Materials Science research data?? RDA caught fire for me at the Berlin Plenary where I really understood how people are a central pillar of data cyberinfrastructures. In 2019, I used NSF funding to co-organize the Summit on Big Data and Cyberinfrastructure Materials Data which launched our field on the path to a Materials Research Data Alliance (MaRDa) and I currently serve on the Materials Research Data Alliance Council helping develop the structure and organization of the effort. MaRDa resonates because it is a grassroots effort to build real tools and a broad community - just what's needed to realize the promise of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI). My own background is in materials science, environmental geochemistry, and mineralogy with expertise in high-resolution electron microscopy, synchrotron X-ray methods, neutron scattering, and applications of data science in materials analysis and development.