Earlier this year, the HHS Office of Chief Data Officer, HHS Data Governance Board Data Culture Working Group, HHS Evaluation Officer, and HHS Statistical Official created an awards program to recognize personnel and teams leveraging data to advance the HHS mission. The department’s leadership reviewed and selected nominees from 89 submissions. Winners were acknowledged at an awards ceremony on December 5, 2023.

Two of the eight recipients were NCI awardees. They include:

• HHS Distinguished Achievement in Federal Data and Policy, Jaime M. Guidry Auvil, Director, NCI Office of Data Sharing
• HHS Outstanding Data Contribution, The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program Team

“This award means so much to me and truly speaks to the critical nature of the unique work being done by the entire NCI Office of Data Sharing team,” states Dr. Guidry Auvil.

If you’re an NCI-funded researcher, data sharing policy is imperative to you. As Dr. Guidry Auvil explains, it’s the policy that outlines what’s expected of you and your respective institution(s). If guidance and implementation approaches work, then each data set collected will be well-managed in accordance with optimized plans and shared with the broad cancer research community in ways that validate significance and enhance utility. She supports this claim by saying, “Over time, this benefit will increase exponentially as investigators access and use more publicly available data.”

These annual awards highlight best practices used to achieve creative, resourceful, and collaborative solutions to agency data challenges.