Rebecca Rodriguez MS, PhD

Rebecca Rodriguez is the director of the NIDDK Central Repository program. The program makes clinical studies' generated resources available to the broader scientific community, maximizing the research's impact and scientific value. In her role, she provides guidance, technical direction, and oversight for the performance of repository support staff and repository contractors and coordinates repository interactions with study groups to ensure the timely transfer of resources following approved Data Management and Sharing Plans. She advises and assists repository applicants and is involved in resource release determinations. In addition, she supports the Office of Clinical Research Support (OCRS) along with a multidisciplinary team to develop and implement policies and guidance that adhere to NIH and NIDDK regulations and policies to ensure these are applied consistently across NIDDK divisions. She is currently implementing new initiatives to monitor and refine adherence to data and biospecimen sharing practices, assessing and managing Repository Program costs, and promoting Repository resources utilization, making these FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) for secondary research.

Rodriguez earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Prior to joining NIDDK, She worked for the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program (IDCRP), an interagency collaboration network between the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Uniformed Services University (USU), and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation (HJF) for the Advancement of Military Medicine, headquartered in Rockville MD, where she served as the site manager and liaison for multiple high impact interventional and observational studies under the Deployment and Travel Related Infectious Diseases Research Area in Honolulu, Hawaii. Before IDCRP, she spent time conducting research for the Defense Health Agency, the Veterans Health Administration R&D Program, Academia, and the Biotech industry, working at various stages and diverse areas of biomedical and clinical research.