Registration

Register today. This event is open to all Cornell-affiliated community members including Ithaca, Weill, and Cornell Tech campus staff, faculty, students, and researchers.

Event Details

Ithaca Campus: Statler Hall, and online via Zoom

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

9 am–4pm

Summary

This spring, we'll discuss data. How do we analyze it? How can we communicate our insights? How do we use data to inform process, practice, and generate trust?

Agenda

Morning: 9am-12pm

• 9:00-9:10am Morning Welcome, Ben Maddox, Statler Auditorium.
• 9:10-9:45am Opening, Elaine Westbrooks, Statler Auditorium.
• 9:45-10:30am Keynote Speaker: Lee Humphreys, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication, CALS, Statler Auditorium.
• 10:30-11:15 Poster Sessions, Statler Atrium and via webinar link
  • Data Storage Options - Chris Manly
  • Boomi: Connecting Cornell’s Digital Enterprise - Preslava Staneva, Steve Barrett
  • Gamification for Good: Turning Players into Philanthropists - Lin Xue, Maks Muno
  • Ten Tips for More Trustworthy Research - Sarah J. Wright, Wendy Kozlowski
  • The Role of Curation in Sharing Trustworthy Data & Code - Lencia McKee, Gabriella Evergreen
• 11:15am-12pm Breakout Sessions
  • Cornell’s Data Lakehouse open house: A tour of the Data Lakehouse - Jeff Christen - Room 196
  • Challenges and Successes of Gathering and Reporting on Faculty Activities - Dean Meloney - Room 265
  • Digital Health Technology and Informed Consent - Cindy Chen - Room 198
  • From Data Doubt to Data-Driven: Building a Culture of Trust in Metrics & KPIs - Alysia Hillyard - Room 165

Lunch: 12-1pm

• Lunch is available in the Atrium for on-site attendees.

Afternoon: 1-3:30pm

• 1-1:15pm Afternoon Welcome, Ben Maddox, Statler Auditorium
• 1:15-2pm Keynote Speaker: Tom Campion, Chief Research Informatics Officer in the Office of the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research and the Information Technologies & Services Department, WCM, Statler Auditorium
• 2-2:30pm Panel: Lee Humphreys and Tom Campion, facilitated by Ben Maddox, Statler Auditorium
• 2:45-3:30pm Breakout Sessions
  • DnA, Data and Analytics - Gregory Menzenski - Room 196
  • Panel: AI and the Evolution of Work - Ayham Boucher, Sylvie Honig, Trish Davis, Rebecca Joffrey, Kathy Burkgren, Statler Auditorium
  • Data Classification and Access to Sensitive Data - Evan Sholle - Room 198
  • Academic Planning - Aaron Fowler - Room 265
• 3:30-4pm Coffee and snacks in the Atrium

Breakout and Poster Session Details

Poster Sessions

• Data Storage Options - Chris Manly

• Boomi: Connecting Cornell’s Digital Enterprise - Preslava Staneva, Steve Barrett

Join members Cornell's integration team for an insightful poster session on Boomi iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service), our enterprise solution for seamless application integration. Learn how this powerful platform is already transforming connectivity across campus by efficiently connecting numerous university systems.

• Gamification for Good: Turning Players into Philanthropists - Lin Xue, Maks Muno (Remote)

Discover how gamification can inspire philanthropy while leveraging the power of data to build trust. This poster explores three key aspects: detecting hackers and securing applications, tracking player engagement to enhance user experiences, and monitoring charitable giving to amplify social impact.

• The Role of Curation in Sharing Trustworthy Data & Code - Lencia McKee, Gabriella Evergreen

The Library’s Research Data & Open Scholarship (RDOS) team supports the Cornell community in managing and sharing research outputs through data curation services. Using the CURATE(D) process developed by the Data Curation Network, we apply practical, transparent, and widely accessible techniques to ensure datasets are complete, well documented, and structured for long-term access, discovery, and reuse. Our data curators collaborate with researchers to enhance data Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR), upholding the highest level of data stewardship and quality assurance.

• Ten Tips for More Trustworthy Research - Sarah J. Wright, Wendy Kozlowski

Reproducible research, FAIR data, data stewardship – all of these are terms used to describe the work researchers do to practice trustworthy research. We’ll demystify the vocabulary and list ten tips to help ensure the accessibility, reliability, and quality of your research data.

Breakout Sessions

• Cornell’s Data Lakehouse open house: A tour of the Data Lakehouse - Jeff Christen

This presentation will introduce the concept of a Data Lakehouse, a modern data architecture that combines the best elements of data lakes and data warehouses. We'll explore how this hybrid approach enables both structured and unstructured data storage while maintaining data reliability, performance, and governance. 

Key topics will include: 

    · Core principles and architecture of the Data Lakehouse 
    · Distinctive features and advantages over traditional data storage solutions 
    · Current data assets within Cornell's Lakehouse ecosystem 
    · Ongoing implementations and future development roadmap 

Learn how Cornell is leveraging this innovative architecture to enhance data management, analytics capabilities, and cross-functional collaboration. 

• Challenges and Successes of Gathering and Reporting on Faculty Activities - Dean Meloney

A discussion about the faculty activity database used by the SC Johnson College of Business, and the various process and reporting that it drives. We make numerous crucial decisions based on the data we keep, but getting the data requires establishing trust with the people who are the sources, and making it useful requires accuracy and establishing trust with the leaders and administrators. Come ready for a conversation in the spirit of learning from one another, and sharing how other schools and departments handle these universal problems.

• Digital Health Technology and Informed Consent - Cindy Chen

With digital health technologies, such as mobile apps and wearables, becoming more prevalent in clinical research, the informed consent form needs to describe the data workflow in such a way that is precise yet understandable by a lay person. How do we address the challenge of digital literacy while building their trust in the novel technology?  

• DnA, Data and Analytics - Gregory Menzenski

Data and Analytics across CIT and WCM ITS, including the Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI) DnA readiness initiative, and an update on Ithaca Business Intelligence (BI) tools.

• Data Classification and Access to Sensitive Data - Evan Sholle

As an increasing amount of data are collected and used for a myriad of purposes, how do we thoughtfully protect the data while allowing researchers to utilize the data. We’ll discuss data governance & classification tiers as well as provide examples of collaborations (e.g., TriNetX and All of Us Researcher Workbench)

• From Data Doubt to Data-Driven: Building a Culture of Trust in Metrics & KPIs - Alysia Hillyard

In many organizations, the journey to becoming data-driven is fraught with challenges—distrust in metrics, fear of being measured, and resistance to change. This session explores how to navigate these hurdles, drawing from experiences in manufacturing and higher education to build confidence in data and reporting. Learn practical strategies for overcoming skepticism, fostering a culture that embraces performance measurement, and designing dashboards that drive action. Attendees will leave with insights into the DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) pyramid and actionable steps to integrate meaningful data into decision-making processes. Whether you're starting your data journey or refining existing metrics, this session will equip you with the tools to transform raw numbers into trusted, actionable insights. Join us on a journey through "Metrics Land" which plans to be informative as well as entertaining!

Academic Planning - Aaron Fowler

The SC Johnson College of Business has developed a database to track information that informs their academic planning including what will be taught, and who will teach it. A lot of work went into establishing trust in the process, the database system, and the system itself. This session will explore the challenges involved in that endeavor, and how to build trust in systems, processes, and data.

Panels

• AI and the Evolution of Work - Ayham Boucher, Sylvie Honig, Trish Davis, Rebecca Joffrey, Kathy Burkgren

As artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace, organizations are navigating uncharted territory that requires rethinking skills, job structures, and institutional processes. Our expert panelists will delve into the swift evolution of AI and its impact on the delicate equilibrium between automation and human expertise. The discussion, hosted by the IT Strategy & Innovation team, will challenge us all to envision the modern AI work landscape and consider how we, at Cornell, can chart a course to introduce employees to the "AI universe" while proactively shaping the future of our own jobs and careers. 

Host and Keynote Presenter Backgrounds

Ben Maddox - Chief Information Officer for Cornell's Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech, Maddox earned his doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.A. in education and cognitive science from New York University, and his B.A. in political science from Baylor University. In addition to his role at Cornell, he is also an adjunct instructor and doctoral advisor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. His academic work focuses on intersections of systems: people, organizations, and technology --particularly how technology, innovation, leadership, and learning fuel change. Prior to his role at Cornell, Maddox served as NYU's chief academic technology officer, capping off his 13 years in leadership roles for NYU's New York and Abu Dhabi campuses.

Elaine L. Westbrooks - Elaine L. Westbrooks is the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian and member of the senior leadership team within the Provost's Office. Serving in this leadership role since July 2022, she spearheads the vital operations and innovative programs of Cornell University Library and Cornell University Press. Cornell University Library holds over 8 million volumes and spans 18 unit libraries. In 2024, Westbrooks led the Library in creating its “One Library for One Cornell Strategic Plan Framework” to further advance scholarship at Cornell and beyond.  

Westbrooks serves on the boards and committees of several organizations, including the Science Library Advisory Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Board of Directors of the Digital Public Library of America; the Deans Advisory Board of EBSCO; the MIT Visiting Committee for Libraries; and the Board of Directors for Sage. She received her bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh, where she also earned a master’s degree in library and information science. Prior to Cornell, Westbrooks held leadership roles at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.   

Lee Humphreys, Ph.D. - Lee Humphreys is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Cornell. Her research examines the adoption and integration of communication technologies into everyday life. She has studied mobile and social media focusing on questions of identity, social interaction, privacy, and surveillance. She was also the Founding Director of the Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute at Cornell and serves on the Advisory Board for the Qualitative Data Repository at Syracuse University. 

Thomas R. Campion, Jr., Ph.D. - Thomas leads Weill Cornell Medicine’s efforts to support clinical and translational investigators with electronic patient data, especially through the secondary use of electronic health record data. As Chief Research Informatics Officer in the Office of the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research and the Information Technologies & Services Department, as well as Director of Biomedical Informatics in the Clinical & Translational Science Center, he leads the Architecture for Research Computing in Health program, which matches scientists with tools and services for obtaining electronic patient data and enabling scientific workflows. Dr. Campion is also Professor of Research in Population Health Sciences in the Division of Health Informatics. He has served as a co-investigator in multiple funded research initiatives, including the NIH’s RECOVER, N3C, ACT, and All of Us Research Program as well as PCORI’s INSIGHT Clinical Research Network. Nationally, he leads efforts to advance science using data and informatics through the NIH CTSA consortium, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Clinical Research Forum IT Roundtable, and the Association of American Medical Colleges Group on Information Resources.

His research interests include electronic infrastructure to support clinical and translational scientists, measurement of the biomedical research enterprise, computable phenotyping, clinical decision support, health information exchange, and organizational issues in informatics. He joined the Weill Cornell Medicine faculty in 2010 after earning a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Informatics from Vanderbilt University and a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Studies and German from the University of Michigan.

Parking

The public bus service, TCAT, stops in front of Statler Hall. If you are driving and don't have a campus parking permit, you can purchase parking through the ParkMobile app. Locations can be found on the PDF.