About the Research Data Stewardship Initiative

As a public research university, U-M has a responsibility to equitably and securely expand the accessibility and transparency of our research data. In addition, funding agencies, publishers, and others have been increasingly requiring or incentivizing making research data publicly available. These mandates follow a general trend of more open scholarship within the research community, including making data more available to allow to replicate or reproduce the research, or to reuse the data that was generated for new research.

The challenges associated with new processes and practices have prompted the release of a number of recent reports and recommendations, including the AAU-APLU Public Access Working Group report, the NASEM/Open Research Funders Group Draft Open Science Toolkit, and the preliminary NIST Research Data Framework.  Additionally, the NIH is implementing a new Policy for Data Management and Sharing in January 2023, and other agencies are expected to follow suit.

To address the need for broad, institution-wide communication, education and coordination related to these changes, the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) launched the Research Data Stewardship Initiative (RDSI).

Research Data Cycle Graphic

The RSDI is led by the Office of the Vice President for Research, in partnership with many other data support units across the university. The working and faculty advisory groups, membership information below, are crucial to the initiative’s success.

Faculty Advisory Group
Name Title
Jeff Fessler William L. Root Collegiate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Professor, Radiology
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Jinseok Kim Research Assistant Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research
Research Assistant Professor, Information and Adjunct Lecturer in Information, School of Information
Margaret C. Levenstein Director, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Executive Director, Michigan Federal Statistical Research Data Center;
Research Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research;
Adjunct Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Ross School of Business
Hernan Lopez-Fernandez Associate Chair for Collections, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Museums
Associate Professor
Associate Curator of Fishes
Arthur Lupia Research Professor, Center for Political Studies
Gerald R Ford Distinguished University Professor
Robert J. Ploutz-Snyder Research Professor
Assistant Dean of Research and Scholarship
Director, Applied Biostatistics Laboratory
Ricky Punzalan Associate Professor of Information
Laura Scott Research Professor of Biostatistics
Working Group

 

Name Title Unit
Nick Wigginton Associate Vice President for Research – Strategic Initiatives Office of the Vice President for Research
Mashon Allen Chief of Staff, VPIT-CIO mashonal@umich.edu
Drew Bennett Director of Software and Content Licensing Innovation Partnerships
Rick Brandon Associate General Counsel Office of the Vice President & General Counsel
Joanna Thielen Senior Associate Librarian, Library Health Sciences University Library
Erin Kaleba Director, Data Office for Clinical and Translational Research Medical School, Office of Research
Kelsey Keeves Communications Manager Office of the Vice President for Research
Lindsey Mitchell Project Senior Manager Office of the Vice President for Research
Jess Peirson Associate Director Research Integrity
Sara Samuel Informationist Taubman Health Sciences Library
Diane Lehman Wilson Administrative Manager Medical School Regulatory Affairs
Shandra White Assistant Vice President for Research – Sponsored Projects Office of Research and Sponsored Projects