Nicole M. Contaxis

As the Head of Data Sharing and Metadata Management and a member of the Data Services Team at the NYU Health Sciences Library, my work focuses on research data infrastructure, research data practices, ethics, and policy. I develop resources for, evaluate, and improve biomedical data sharing both within NYU Langone Health and nationally. I lead ongoing initiatives to improve data sharing and data discovery, including the NYU Data Catalog. The NYU Data Catalog, crated in 2014, is an open-source software project designed to help researchers locate data for secondary analysis and to make their own data more discoverable, regardless of where it is stored. I also assist researchers in developing data sharing strategies that meet funder and publisher requirements and leverage pre-existing data infrastructure, such as data repositories.

Additional projects cover topics like facilitating code sharing, developing workflows and technologies to assist in the creation and implementation of data management and sharing plans, and improving data cataloging and curation practices. All of my work is informed by an interest in data ethics and bioethics, specifically on the ethical ramifications of digital infrastructure development.

I also assist in teaching librarians nationally as a member of the National Center for Data Services (NCDS) at the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM). By undertaking educational initiative like developing webinars and courses on open data, data ethics, data sharing, and data equity, I work with the rest of the NCDS team to improve library data services nationally.