Andrea Medina-Smith PhD (Expected completion by 2027), Baltimore, MD
“Being open-minded about where you can use your skills and how you can use your skills has really helped me through my career.”
Andrea Medina-Smith is a PhD Candidate in the School of Information’s Gateway program and the Executive Editor of Sage Data. She was recently a featured speaker at SJSU’s Open Access Summit.
The event’s theme, “Defend Research, Defend Open Access,” aligned with Ms. Medina-Smith’s professional interests and research focus. Her in-progress dissertation examines the outcomes of legislative efforts to make federal data open-access. Looking particularly at the 2013 Holdren Memo and the Office of Management and Budget’s M13-13, which articulated unprecedented goals for open-access to federal data, she is interested in when and how federal data is being used.
The research draws from over a decade of experience as a data librarian at the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In alignment with the policy push, NIST sought to both follow through on its open-access objectives with its own datasets and also encourage the utilization of federal data for research through outreach and engagement initiatives.
Navigating Challenges in Federal Data and Policy
Her work at NIST motivated her pursuit of a PhD and continues to inform her dissertation research. Overall, she says, “we still need time” to evaluate when and how federal data is being used, particularly regarding policy evaluation. However, her findings already elucidate important issues for LIS professionals – for instance, inconsistency in citation methods and adherence has led to what she believes is a significant undercount in how often federal data sets have been utilized.
She is also concerned that the current Trump administration’s vitriol towards scientists and academics has put all these initiatives in a “holding pattern,” if not cut them altogether. Even existing data is at risk, as staffing and budget cuts continue to imperil collection and maintenance. “Work that is being done by universities and groups like the Data Rescue Project are essential,” she says, for saving and safeguarding federal data.
Integrating Feminist Perspectives into Open Science
In addition to being a champion of open access, Medina-Smith has demonstrated her commitment to ethical research methodologies through her professional writing and outreach. Earlier this year, she contributed a research guide, How Feminist is Your Open Data?, to Sage Research Methods’ data literacy library – a vital resource for students and researchers.
The article demonstrates a weaving together of feminist principles and Open Science best-practices, highlighting how a feminist approach to data science illuminates best practices for all researchers by putting key issues such as accessibility, inclusion, transparency and pluralism at the fore and insisting on challenging hierarchical approaches in data collection and research methods.
“Science tries to be neutral,” she says, “but the people who are actually doing the research are not neutral. So how do we talk about those things? How does that tension show up?” She urges researchers to think about this tangibly: “Who are you bringing into the lab? What questions is everyone being allowed to ask” both of each other, and of the data?
Leading Sage Data into a New Era
Now in the first year of her tenure as Executive Editor for Sage Data, Medina-Smith is bringing her combined expertise in applied data and research ethics to help guide the organization in a new direction.
When the product that became Sage Data began in the 1990s the resource library and functionalities were revolutionary – But now that access is the norm, and Sage is pivoting to meet new needs. “We are repositioning ourselves,” she explains, and are focused on developing Sage into “a place for students to learn how to use data responsibly and ethically, and how to ask questions of data.”
Like most LIS professionals, Ms. Medina-Smith and her team at Sage are thinking critically about the impact of AI technology on their own work and on the field more broadly. But, she says, she has rarely found herself utilizing AI in her work. At Sage, the entire company is “being very deliberate with each product that we’re thinking of putting AI into.” That means considering the adoption ”not only from a business side” but also asking “does this actually help a student? Does this actually help a user?”
A Career Built on Adaptability and Purpose
Medina-Smith exemplifies a multi-disciplinary professional – her career spans public and private sectors, requires both technical knowledge and grounded ethical commitments, and is now geared towards developing innovative approaches to data literacy. “Really being open-minded about where you can use your skills and how you can use your skills has really helped me through my career,” she reflects.
Even when her own path has taken unexpected turns and required pivoting at difficult moments, she has learned to bring her strengths and values to every role – and in moments of uncertainty or change, she reminds her colleagues to “see how your experience and knowledge is really transferable.”