Owen White

Owen White, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology & Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He holds administrative roles as Associate Director of the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) and Associate Director of Research Collaboration & Development at IGS. His work focuses on genomic and transcriptomic analysis, leading a team of 25 scientists in developing annotation pipelines, databases, and tools for genomic/metagenomic data. He has managed NIH-funded data centers for the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and the Integrative HMP, generating over 50,000 datasets totaling 10 terabytes. His expertise includes bioinformatics, cloud systems, and metadata standards.

Education:

• BS in Biotechnology, University of Massachusetts, 1985
• PhD in Molecular Biology, New Mexico State University, 1992
• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Genome Informatics at TIGR, 1994

Research Interests: Dr. White's work revolves around large-scale genomic data management, multi-omic integration, and microbiome analysis. He emphasizes open-access data ecosystems, standardization of metadata, and cloud-based tools for genomic research. His contributions include the HMP Data Analysis and Coordination Center and the NeMO platform for Alzheimer’s disease research.

Awards:

• Benjamin Franklin Award (2015) for Open Access in the Life Sciences
• Kumho Science International Award in Plant Molecular Biology (2001)
• Common Fund Cloud Pilot supplement (ongoing)

Grants & Collaborations: PI of NIH-funded data centers for the HMP and iHMP. Collaborates on Common Fund initiatives and serves as an expert consultant for data sustainability workshops. His lab supports fee-for-service projects and joint research funding with university investigators.

Labs/Teams: Leads the IGS team responsible for genomic annotation tools and pipelines, including CloVR and gEAR platforms. Active in the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network and Neuroscience Multi-Omic Archive projects.