1. Can you provide a 2-3 sentence biography of yourself?
Hi, I am Peter Cerda, a new data curator for the Deep Blues. I am originally from Idaho and lived in Texas for 14 years before coming up north to the University of Michigan to pursue a Masters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2014. I studied the evolution of snail venoms and switched to studying the evolution of snake venoms for my Ph.D. which I completed in April 2023.
2. What do you do?
I am the new Data Curation Specialist for Workflows and Big Data, meaning I help students and faculty deposit large, complex data sets into Deep Blue Repository. I also help researchers think about how they can best manage and preserve their data to make it more accessible to the public.
3. What interested you in working in an academic library?
About a year ago, I made the decision to not pursue a traditional tenure track professor career path, which led to the question of “well… what now?” I knew I wanted to stay in Ann Arbor, and started searching job boards when I came across a posting for a Data Curation Specialist and thought that sounded cool. As I learned more about it, the idea of working with other librarians and researchers to help make their data openly available to the world is one that inspired me to apply for this position and others like it.
4. Why do you think data sharing and curation is important?
I was fortunate to have an affiliation with the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology, which gave me first-hand experience with preserving data (in this case specimens and related field information) with the idea that we don’t know who will access this or for what reason, but that we must do our best to make sure everyone from around the world can use our holding for their work. We are lucky to be able to go to remote locations to do our work, but we kept in mind that not everyone has this privilege. Now in this position, I get to help others make their data open to everyone.
5. If you weren’t doing data curation, what would you be doing?
I like to think I would become a biology professor at a smaller Hispanic serving institute, like the one I went to for my undergraduate degree. One which has a heavy focus on teaching, which is one thing I really enjoy doing, and some research, so I can give undergraduates an opportunity to pursue their own projects and learn about the biological world.
6. What do you like to do outside of work?
Since the COVID-19, I have really gotten into cooking. I will often search the New York Times cooking app or cookbooks to find some new recipe to try. Now that it is summer, every other meal is cooked on a grill. I also enjoy being out in nature (big surprise for a biologist), so running or hiking are some common activities for me. Perhaps most often you’ll find me watching a sporting event, whether it be a soccer game, Le Tour de France, or, having become (unfortunately) a fan this year, a Detroit Tigers game.