Andrea Thomer

Dr. Andrea Thomer is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Information Science. Her research focuses on knowledge infrastructures, scientific data curation, and natural history collections. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017, following work as an excavator and data curator at the La Brea Tar Pits. Her work addresses challenges in long-term database curation, data interoperability, and ethical open science practices. Dr. Thomer has secured grants from the NSF and IMLS, with publications in JASIST, CSCW, and other venues.

Her research interests emphasize the sociotechnical aspects of data systems, including provenance tracking, dataset citation, and community-driven data frameworks. She leads efforts to standardize metadata practices and improve accessibility for physical samples through projects like iSamples and Neotoma. Dr. Thomer collaborates across disciplines to address gaps in data governance, particularly in geoscience and biodiversity research.

Recent work explores AI-ready sample preparation, FAIR/CARE compliance, and mitigating data misuse risks. She advocates for cross-sector collaboration to preserve at-risk datasets and trains the next generation of data professionals through integrative teaching strategies.