Melissa Cragin

Melissa Cragin is Chief Strategist for Data Initiatives in the Research Data Services division at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Prior to joining SDSC, Melissa was the inaugural Executive Director of the Midwest Big Data Hub, based at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Previously, Melissa was Staff Associate in the Office of the Assistant Director, Directorate of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where she also served as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. At NSF, she guided development of data policy and accelerated community engagement on research data management and public access. At SDSC, Melissa works on projects to improve data access and use, and foster the development of the national data infrastructure ecosystem and related policy. Melissa has a PhD in information science from UIUC, and a MLIS degree from Rutgers University.