Speakers

As Executive Director of Research Data Canada (RDC), Mark builds on the existing progress of RDC and facilitates broad stakeholder outreach to launch programs that strengthen Canada’s research data management capacity. Under Mark’s leadership, RDC will move forward with programs that ensure data management solutions evolve in concert with other elements of Canada’s digital research infrastructure. Before joining CANARIE, Mark enjoyed a successful academic career, most recently as the University Librarian at the University of Prince Edward Island. Mark sat on the Tri-Agencies’ Data Management Policy Advisory Committee, and has also contributed to CANARIE’s Software Technical Advisory Committee and Federated Single Sign-On Committee. Mark brings business acumen and technical savvy to his considerable knowledge of the research data management ecosystem as the founder of the Islandora project, an open source digital asset management system.

Alexa T. McCray conducts research on knowledge representation and discovery, with a special focus on the significant 'Tower of Babel' problems that persist in the curation, dissemination, and exchange of scientific and clinical information in biomedicine and health.

Alexa is the former director of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, a research division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While at the NIH, she directed the design and development of a number of national information resources, including ClinicalTrials.gov. Before joining the NIH she was on the research staff of IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center. She received a PhD from Georgetown University and served on the faculty there. She conducted predoctoral research at MIT. Alexa joined Harvard Medical School in 2005, where she was founding co-director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and associate director of the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.

Alexa was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly IOM) in 2001. She is the incoming co-chair the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Board on Research Data and Information. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI). She is the immediate past president of ACMI and is a past member of the board of both the American Medical Informatics Association and the International Medical Informatics Association.

Isabel Galina is currently a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) where she works mainly on new modes of scholarship and digital projects within the Humanities. She is a founding member and current president of the Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD), which aims to promote and strengthen Digital Humanities with special emphasis on research and teaching in Spanish as well as the Latin American region in general.

Marcela Alfaro Córdoba is an Assistant Professor of statistics at the School of Statistics, University of Costa Rica. She is interested in developing novel statistical methods to address scientific questions related to the environment. Her applications areas include climate, weather forecast, and veterinary.

Marcela is committed to practicing open science, and she believes in mentoring young scientists. Her volunteering activities include being a co-chair of CODATA-RDA Schools of Data Science, organizing the R-ladies chapter in San José, and being part of the organizing committee of ConectaR2019, the first R Users Conference in Central America.

Dr Marcos Regis da Silva holds the post of Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. He is responsible for the provision of strategic advice to high level policy makers on issues related to global change, development of linkages between the IAI’s strategic plan and global governance environmental frameworks, especially the Sustainable Development Goals, and long-range strategic planning and financial policies to ensure the implementation of the IAI’s scientific agenda. Previously he held the post of Chief, Knowledge Management and Outreach Services with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). He was responsible for issues related to the use of new information and communication technologies, including those to conduct international trade in specimens of CITES-listed species that is legal, sustainable and traceable. This included development of electronic trade data standards and the establishment of Single Window environments in developing countries. He was previously with the Convention on Biological Diversity where he was responsible for the implementation of the Clearing-House Mechanism and for the technical implementation of the Biosafety Clearing-House under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Before joining the United Nations, Marcos was a Programme Officer with the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation where his duties included the development of the North American Biodiversity Information Network. He holds a PhD from McGill University and was an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Distance Education for many years.