PNNL

Katrina Waters, a Laboratory Fellow and Chief Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will serve as an editorial board member for Scientific Data, a Nature journal that’s dedicated to the sharing and reuse of research data.

In a letter to Waters, the publication’s chief editor says Scientific Data has “grown steadily as the uptake for research data sharing increases.” As a result, their editorial board is expanding to include more subject matter experts who can help research communities engage in data sharing. Waters is a long-time advocate of data sharing, particularly as it relates to her field of expertise: the intersection of environmental exposures and infectious diseases in humans.

Waters is a corresponding author on two publications in this journal that exemplify the principles and advantages of data sharing. In a recent publication, she and a team of collaborators shared a large compendium of data: more than 24,000 raw genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics datasets collected over six years for a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases project focused on studying host response to viral infections. In 2023, Waters and her team published a data resource that links environmental chemical exposure at contaminated sites to biological phenotypes, supporting the joint Oregon State University and PNNL Superfund Research Program funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

In addition to her research programs, Waters leads an internal research program at PNNL called the Predictive Phenomics Initiative, which is focused on developing capabilities to measure and manipulate phenotypes of interest for future applications related to the bioeconomy, human health, and environmental sustainability. She holds joint faculty appointments with Oregon State University and the University of Washington.