Podcast
Decoding the Data Ecosystem
Hosted by Allissa Dillman · EN
ABOUT THE PODCAST
Host Bio
Allissa Dillman, PhD, Training and Engagement Director for the CFDE Training Center, is the founder and CEO of BioData Sage LLC, a company focused on providing a holistic approach to data science integration in the biomedical and biological science fields. She works with clients in industry, academia, government, and the nonprofit sector to create and support training programs on bioinformatics, cloud computing, and the tools and standards for reproducible data science practices for scientific and lay communities. She also creates community events, such as hackathons, where broad communities work towards solving real biomedical data challenges. Dr. Dillman is a member of the adjunct faculty at Montgomery College and has over 10 years of experience working for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her work focuses on lowering the barriers of entry for data science and cloud computing. She received her PhD in computational neuroscience as part of the graduate partnership program between NIH and the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Why Listen?
Decoding the Data Ecosystem: A CFDE Training Center Podcast is more than just a podcast; it's a community for anyone passionate about the potential of omics research to solve complex biological puzzles and address pressing health challenges. Whether you're a seasoned researcher, a student just starting out, or simply curious about the future of biology, this podcast offers valuable insights, inspiring stories, and practical advice to guide your journey through the world of omics research training and education.
Availability
Find Decoding the Data Ecosystem on your favorite podcast platform, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more. Subscribe today to stay updated with the latest episodes and join the conversation shaping the future of omics research training and education. This podcast is hosted by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). Learn more at orau.org.
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Episode 18: Bio-IT World 2026 Hackathon Final Presentations
4w ago00:58:40Tap to summarizeThe CFDE Training Center was a sponsor of the Bio-IT World Hackathon, held May 18 – 19, 2026, and facilitated by Dr. Allissa Dillman. The event focused on Open Source and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles leveraging CFDE omics data and integrating CFDE tools, with a goal of improving interoperability across datasets to accelerate discoveries. This podcast episode is a showcase of the six final presentations from the 2026 Hackathon.
Transcribe →Episode 17: How the Integration and Coordination Center (ICC) Connects the CFDE Community
May 2100:41:37Tap to summarizeDescription In this month’s podcast, Allissa Dillman chats with Swathi Thaker, Program Manager for the CFDE Integration and Coordination Center (ICC). They discuss how the ICC encourages and facilitates collaboration across institutions, data coordinating centers, and programs, as well as how new CFDE partners and early career researchers can start engaging with the CFDE. Guest Swathi Thaker, PhD Guest Bio Swathi Thaker, PhD is the Program Manager for the CFDE Integration and Coordination Center (ICC), as well as the Programs Operation Manager at the Systems Pharmacology AI Research Center at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). Before coming to UAB, she was the Program Manager for the Influenza Division at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition to her professional experience in Program Management, Swathi also has a PhD in Adult Education.
Transcribe →Episode 16: Allissa Dillman and LaFrancis Gibson on the Power of Hackathons
Apr 2100:30:28Tap to summarizeDescription In this crossover podcast with “Trends from the Trenches,” Allison Proffitt, executive editor of Bio-IT World, interviews Allissa Dillman and LaFrancis Gibson from the CFDE Training Center about this year’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Hackathon. They discuss which tools and datasets from CFDE will be part of the Hackathon, who should participate, learning and collaborating beyond datasets and tools, FAIR principles in an ever-developing AI environment, and a message beyond the teams that are participating. Guests Allissa Dillman, PhD LaFrancis Gibson, MPH, MBA Guest Bios Allissa Dillman, PhD, is the founder and CEO of BioData Sage, which helps integrate strategic data science practices into the biomedical and biological sciences. She holds a doctorate in computational neuroscience from Karolinska Institutet and has over a decade of experience spanning government, academia, and nonprofit work, with a focus on strategic planning, community engagement, and workforce training. She is also co-PI of the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem Training Center, leading efforts to develop training resources, podcasts, and community events, such as hackathons, to support biomedical research. Dr. Dillman is an adjunct faculty member at Montgomery College, where she teaches courses in data science and bioinformatics. Previously at NIH, she led workforce development and international training initiatives and organized hackathons, bootcamps, and community-building programs. Her work centers on building inclusive, reproducible, and impactful data science ecosystems through partnerships across major research and public institutions. LaFrancis Gibson, MPH, MBA serves as a manager for health promotion at ORAU and has created a unique skill set and understanding of community-based programs and how to manage them to maximize success. With more than 15 years of experience in managing outreach initiatives, training development, and program evaluation, she ensures project success through her expertise in budget control, risk mitigation, and strategic communication with stakeholders from government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Library of Medicine, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Gibson is experienced in working with multiple stakeholders and partners across federal agencies, Minority-Serving Institutions, community and faith-based organizations, and national organizations. She currently serves as the contact principal investigator for the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem Training Center, providing oversite, coordination, and compliance in delivering bioinformatics training programs that align with NIH mission.
Transcribe →Episode 15: Advancing Glycoscience Research: Empowering Discovery with GlyGen
Mar 2300:45:01Tap to summarizeDescriptionIn this podcast, Allissa Dillman talks with Raja Mazumder, René Ranzinger, and Michael Tiemeyer about their journeys in glycoscience and the goals of the GlyGen program. GlyGen integrates glycan and glycoinformatics data from various sources, making it an accessible and comprehensive online resource for researchers. They also discuss the challenges of working with glycan data, including its structural complexity and variability. They cover several workflows using GlyGen resources, how researchers can contribute data to GlyGen and suggestions for new users on how to get started.GuestsRaja Mazumder, PhDRené Ranzinger, PhDMichael Tiemeyer, PhDGuest BiosRaja Mazumder, PhD is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine and Co-Director of The McCormick Genomic Proteomic Center at George Washington University. His background is in evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. He has previously worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Merck, NIH, and Georgetown University. While working on UniProt at Protein Information Resource, and leading projects such as BioCompute, GlyGen, OncoMX, and ARGOS, Dr. Mazumder worked closely with colleagues in developing international molecular biology resources and using these resources to identify therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines targets. Through NIH, NSF, FDA and industry funding he is involved in genomic and bioinformatics research in cancer biology, glycobiology, metagenomics and bioinformatics standards development.René Ranzinger, PhD is an Associate Research Scientist in the Complex Carbohydrate Research Centre at the University of Georgia. His work focuses on GlycoBioinformatics. As a research scientist, he worked on the implementation of new software tools for the interpretation of glycomics mass spectrometric data. He and his team were also involved in the design and implementation of glycomics databases such as GlyTouCan and GlyGen. Another focus of his work is the standardization of glycomics data reporting as well as standardization of data representation and data exchange. In this context he was organizer and member of several international working groups including the working group to define minimum reporting standards for Glycomics (MIRAGE). Michael Tiemeyer, PhD, is the Joint Director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and the Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Georgia, where he facilitates the research programs of 24 active faculty and 300 research trainees and staff who generate between 20-25 million USD in total grants and contracts each year. He also holds the title of Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Georgia. His own active research areas are focused on the identification and characterization of bioactive glycans in neural development and disease as well as on the development of glycoinformatic strategies and platforms for capturing knowledge in the glycoscience domain.
Transcribe →Episode 14: Investigating Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) for Advancing Pain Prevention Strategies
Feb 400:48:10Tap to summarizeEpisode 14: Investigating Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) for Advancing Pain Prevention Strategies Description In this episode, Allissa Dillman chats with Margaret Taub, a Senior Scientist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on her journey from mathematics to statistical genetics, highlighting her current role with the Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) program. The A2CPS study aims to develop predictive biomarkers for chronic pain by collecting comprehensive genomic, psychosocial, and functional data from patients. To coordinate diverse data sources, Margaret emphasized the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork, drawing parallels between her experiences in teaching, music, and Ultimate Frisbee to her approach in science. Margaret and Allissa also discuss the study's progress and future plans. Guest Bio Margaret Taub, PhD, is a Senior Scientist at Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She works collaboratively with clinicians and epidemiologists to use genetic and genomic data to understand the causes of complex diseases. She is also an Investigator with the Data Integration and Resource Center for the Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) program.
Transcribe →Episode 13: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Statistical Analysis in Genomic Data
Jan 900:44:22Tap to summarizeDescriptionIn this episode, Allissa Dillman talks with John Kwagyan about the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in genomics and personalized medicine as well as the promise of these technologies in analyzing complex biological data to advance disease prediction, prevention, and personalized treatments. They also discuss machine learning models, the differences between machine learning and statistical learning, explainable AI, and ethical considerations, as well as the skills future researchers will need to thrive in the AI-genomics landscape.Guest BioJohn Kwagyan, PhD, is a Statistician and Graduate Associate Professor of Public Health at Howard University College of Medicine, and serves as co-Director of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) at the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS). He is co-PI of the Public Health Informatics and Technology program for District of Columbia (PHIT4DC), and PI (Data Science Core) of the recently funded Howard-Hopkins Comprehensive Alliance in Cancer Research and Education (H2CARE). His research interests include statistical genetics and predictive modelling of clustered data with applications to clinical and public health outcomes.
Transcribe →Episode 12: Exploring the Human Reference Atlas (HRA) Organ Gallery in Immersive 3D
Dec 1500:46:35Tap to summarizeDescription In this video podcast, Allissa Dillman and Andreas Bueckle discuss and demonstrate the Human Reference Atlas (HRA) Organ Gallery, a virtual reality (VR) application that lets users explore the HRA in immersive 3D. Andreas also presents the “HRA Powers of Ten,” a data integration module in development that uses the HRA Common Coordinate Framework (CCF) to harmonize, visualize, and explore data from the small/large intestine, lymph node, skin, and liver. The HRA Organ Gallery is available, for free, to anyone at https://www.meta.com/experiences/5696814507101529. A paper describing the concept of the HRA Organ Gallery is available at https://doi.org/10.3389/fbinf.2023.1162723. Single-cell atlassing portals such as the Human BioMolecular Atlas Project (HuBMAP), the Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet), and the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) publish datasets across scales for multiple organs of the adult human body in health, aging, and disease. This data can be interrogated semantically and spatially, usually on 2D screens with limited 3D affordances. Imagine, for example, examining the 3D location of a cell in the context of a tissue or zooming across multiple orders of magnitude. To be tackled effectively, 3D problems require 3D platforms. Guest Bio Andreas Bueckle, Ph.D. (https://andreas-bueckle.com), is the Research Lead in the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (SICE) at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. His research interest is interactive information visualization in XR. Andreas has a TEDx talk titled “Living and Learning in the Metaverse” (available on YouTube and on the TED website). From 2023-2025, he was awarded two JumpStart Fellowships by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance multiscale exploration of the human body in VR with the Human Reference Atlas Organ Gallery. In 2025, he received an R03 award, also by the NIH, to advance the integration of 3D reference organs with data visualizations of cell type populations for Common Fund datasets in 3D and VR.
Transcribe →Episode 11: Reproducible Voice Data as a Biomarker for AI Models
Nov 1000:41:58Tap to summarizeEpisode 11: Reproducible Voice Data as a Biomarker for AI Models Description In this episode, Allissa Dillman chats with David Dorr and Andrea Krussel about their roles in the Bridge2AI (https://bridge2ai.org/) program, which aims to enhance AI readiness by improving data standards and developing machine learning practices. Co-PIs in B2AI Voice (https://b2ai-voice.org/voice-ai-summer-school/), Dorr and Krussel discussed their work on creating reproducible voice data as a biomarker for AI models, including training programs for researchers, successful examples of career development, publication of their competency framework (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/digital-health/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1610253/abstract), and upcoming symposium. You can also find the B2AI Voice Data online (https://docs.b2ai-voice.org/) and an AI curricula (https://instructure.okta.com/app/). Guest Bios David Dorr, MD, MS earned his bachelor's degree in economics (with minors in mathematics and psychology) and his MD from Washington University in St. Louis. He then completed his internal medicine residency at Oregon Health & Science University and earned a master's degree in medical informatics and health services administration from the University of Utah. Broadly, Dr. Dorr's interests lie in complex care management, especially for older adults and other at-risk populations, coordination of care, collaborative care, chronic disease management, quality and the requirements of clinical information systems to support these areas. From these interests, he has broadened into clinical information needs, Electronic Health Record (EHR) deployment and Health Information Exchange, as a way to expand systems-based approaches to all of health care. Finally, Dr. Dorr performs evaluations of care management and informatics initiatives using a variety of methodologies. Learn more on Dr. Dorr's OHSU profile (https://www.ohsu.edu/people/david-a-dorr-md-ms). Andrea Krussel is the Director of Education and Workforce Development in the Office of Health Information and Data Science at WashU Medicine. In this capacity, she oversees the operations, development, and implementation of biostatistics, data science, and biomedical informatics academic programs. Andrea holds a BA in Theatre and an MA in Communication Arts and utilizes her teaching, acting, and science backgrounds to provide science communication courses and workshops for the WashU community. She also creates, leads, and evaluates competency-based workforce development initiatives in AI, informatics, and data science at WashU, nationally, and abroad. Andrea is a PhD student in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on integrating artificial intelligence into medical education to enhance clinical decision-making skills in medical students and trainees while easing the administrative burden of clinical instructors. Learn more about the CFDE podcast here (https://orau.org/cfde-trainingcenter/podcast.html).
Transcribe →Episode 10: Overview of the Common Fund Data Ecosystem and how the Training Center supports the CFDE
Oct 900:37:13Tap to summarizeEpisode 10: Overview of the Common Fund Data Ecosystem and how the Training Center supports the CFDE Description The National Institutes of Health Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) aims to enable broad use of Common Fund data to accelerate discovery. NIH Common Fund programs generate a wide range of diverse and valuable data sets and knowledge designed to be used by the research community. The CFDE aims to facilitate improved discovery, reuse, integration, and analyses of these datasets to form novel hypothesis for accelerating discoveries in biomedical research. ORAU received a contract from the NIH to develop a state-of-the-art training center for users of the CFDE. In this cross-over episode with Further Together: The ORAU Podcast, Allissa Dillman, Ph.D., co-principal investigator and owner of BioData Sage LLC, and Jennifer Burnette, ORAU project director, talk to host Michael Holtz about the importance of the CFDE Training Center and how it can help researchers mine data for omics research of various kinds. Guest Bios Allissa Dillman, PhD, co-PI and Training and Engagement Director for the CFDE Training Center, is the founder and CEO of BioData Sage LLC, a company focused on providing a holistic approach to data science integration in the biomedical and biological science fields. She works with clients in industry, academia, government, and nonprofit sector to create and support training programs on bioinformatics, cloud computing, and the tools and standards for reproducible data science practices for scientific and lay communities. She also creates community events, such as hackathons, where broad communities work towards solving real biomedical data challenges. Jennifer Burnette, MPH, CFDE Training Center Director and project manager and director for ORAU expertly steers complex, interdisciplinary programs that bridge local, state, and federal stakeholders. Her career is a testament to her ability to navigate complex networks, having successfully coordinated projects for over 20 federal agency customers including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and 13 DOE and other federal national laboratories.Learn more about the CFDE podcast here (https://orau.org/cfde-trainingcenter/podcast.html).
Transcribe →Episode 09: MoTrPAC and the Science of Fitness
Sep 1600:52:31Tap to summarizeEpisode 09: MoTrPAC and the Science of FitnessDescriptionIn this episode, Allissa Dillman chats with researchers Malene Lindholm and Dan Katz about their work on MoTrPAC. Malene has a 20-year background in molecular exercise physiology and Dan started his medical training in cardiology and now uses high-dimensional data to understand heart failure. MoTrPAC (Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium) is a NIH-funded initiative studying exercise effects across multiple sites in the US using both human and animal studies. Dan and Malene explain what the dataset is all about, including what data is collected, from where, and the kinds of raw and pre-processed data available. They also describe how it can be accessed through various user-friendly tools for scientists of all technical abilities. Find out more at https://motrpac-data.org/ and contact them with questions at motrpac-helpdesk@lists.stanford.edu. Guest BiosDaniel Katz, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR) and the Cardiovascular Medicine Divisions. He practices as an Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist. He completed internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, general cardiology training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and joined Stanford in 2021 for his advanced heart failure training. His research focuses on identifying the various pathophysiological patterns and mechanisms that lead to the heterogeneous syndrome of heart failure. His efforts leverage high dimensional data in many forms including clinical phenotypes, plasma proteomics, metabolomics, and genetics. He is presently engaged in analysis of multi-omics data from MoTrPAC, and the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Program. Malene Lindholm, PhD, is a senior research engineer and Director of the Human Molecular Athlete Moonshot for the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at Stanford University. After earning her PhD in Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, she performed her postdoctoral studies at the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford University. Her current research focuses on unraveling the multi-omics adaptation mechanisms to exercise across tissues and the genetic basis of extreme human performance. The ultimate objective is to transform the findings into tangible application in the field of precision exercise health and medicine.Learn more about the CFDE podcast here (https://orau.org/cfde-trainingcenter/podcast.html).
Transcribe →