Decoding the Data Ecosystem

Decoding the Data Ecosystem


Episode 10: Overview of the Common Fund Data Ecosystem and how the Training Center supports the CFDE

October 09, 2025

Episode 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).