Spotlight on: Alexandre de Pinho Uliana
Every other week, the Thematic DCCs and the Data Steward Interest Group (DSIG) put the spotlight on one research data steward working in the Netherlands to stimulate knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning.
What drew you towards the research data management field?
I have always been passionate about data. I find it fascinating to collect information and draw meaningful conclusions from it. About five years ago, when I started a new bachelor’s degree in psychology, I was immediately drawn to the more quantitative side of the field. I was amazed by how data could be used not only to analyze but even to predict human behavior. This led me to specialize in statistics and applied methods in psychology. However, working with such sensitive data quickly made me realize that meaningful analysis depends heavily on how the data is governed and managed. Sharing and reusing health and behavioral data is possible, but it requires both careful attention and solid expertise, especially on privacy regulations.
What is an activity/task of your role that you find yourself looking forward to?
What I enjoy most about working with data is the analysis itself: looking at how the data is structured, deciding on the most suitable model to apply, and then interpreting the results. That process of turning numbers into meaningful insights is always something I look forward to.
What is something unexpected that you can offer help with, if a colleague reaches out to you?
I can mention two areas. First, I am currently involved in a project on synthetic data generation, with a particular focus on interpreting the metrics that show how private, accurate, and useful these datasets are. Another, perhaps more unexpected, area where I could contribute is performance management through gamification: how to transform performance indicators into something that stimulates people’s intrinsic motivation.
What do you think your community of research data professionals is missing?
I feel there are not enough opportunities for professionals from different backgrounds to come together and work on solving concrete problems. We already have plenty of ways to access knowledge and resources, but what I would really value is the chance to sit down with others and tackle real challenges collaboratively.
What is a topic you would want to collaborate on with others?
For example, I would love to collaborate on building a real metadata catalogue together with partners who are motivated to make it happen. I would also enjoy supporting researchers more directly, helping them choose, run, and evaluate the results of their statistical models.
How would you like to see your current field of work evolve in the next 5 years?
I think we are still in a phase of adapting to the different ways data can be shared and reused, while complying with existing data protection regulations. In five years, I hope we will spend less time defining governance rules and more time working directly with the data itself. By then, I expect approaches that are still relatively new today, such as multi party computation, federated learning, and interoperability through FAIR Data Points, to become more established and widely used.
Get in touch with Alexandre on LinkedIn
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