Erica Marie Rutherford

Bio

My career spanning nine years as a data curator has given me a lot of experience and perspective into the workings of scientific data and metadata, and its organization. During my time before graduate school, I attained experience on a variety of fieldwork projects in ecology (2008-2013). During these temporary seasonal assignments, the importance of precision and care in data collection was impressed in me. When I went to graduate school at San Francisco State University (2013-2016), I gained experience in all parts of a molecular biology experiment, from fieldwork to labwork to data analysis. After graduation, I worked at a microbiome focused startup company, Second Genome, as their data curator (2016-2021). While there, I was responsible for curation of metadata for both internal studies for R&D and for clients, and for external studies being brought in for our internal Knowledgebase. While there, I developed an appreciate for ontologies, and developed a custom Second Genome Ontology to handle our metadata. I moved on to the Lattice group, located at Stanford University, where I continued to expand my skills in data curation (2021-present). I have gained experience in handling single cell datasets and their associated metadata, and curating them to meet precise standards. I strive to work collaboratively with data contributors in order to ensure FAIR data standards.

Supervisors

• Jason Hilton