Jonathan Crabtree is rooted in data management
The inaugural director of the Research Data Management Core has contributed to Carolina research for 31 years.
Jonathan Crabtree is the inaugural director of the Research Data Management Core, created in 2023 within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. He completed both a master’s and doctorate in information science while working at Carolina, for a total of three degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill.
This interview is part of UNC Research’s “Rooted” series, which recognizes long-standing members of the UNC-Chapel Hill community who have aided in the advancement of research by staying at Carolina.
What brought you to Carolina?
Coming to Carolina was literally coming home. I grew up 9 miles away from Chapel Hill’s campus on a small family farm in Chatham County. My mother and two grandparents worked here, so I had the pleasure of growing up a Tar Heel. I spent summers with my grandfather around Carmichael and Woollen gyms and playing in the “Tin Can” — an old dirt running track surrounded by corrugated tin walls — where the student recreation center is built today.
I was excited to leverage my initial skills in computer networking to help groups in the School of Medicine. I came to work and raise my family in the community I love.
How has your role here changed over the years?
I began as a computing consultant in the School of Medicine information network, installing and managing servers and networks for groups such as pediatric medicine, neurosurgery and lab animal medicine.
I was approached by the Institute for Research in Social Science, now the Odum Institute, to help coordinate and lead the information technology management for the institute. While at Odum, I was asked to manage the institute’s data archive — one of the largest catalogs of social science research data in the U.S. — along with the grants that fund its management. I began developing a research agenda that helped Odum build the tools and workflows needed to curate, manage and share data.
What’s kept you at Carolina?
The ability to grow as an individual and an employee. Carolina has provided me with a safe and encouraging environment to learn new skills and branch out into new knowledge areas. I can easily say that my career path has never been boring. New opportunities and challenges are around every bend.
The research community here is one of the most collaborative and inviting in the world, and I am honored to be a part of it. With the encouragement of UNC Research leadership, I built the Global Dataverse Community Consortium — an international collaboration to create and support tools to manage research data.
What contribution are you most proud of?
The creation of the core. The unit was established by OVCR in response to new scientific data management and sharing policies from federal funding agencies and other critical stakeholders. The core provides institutional data management support to all projects and clinical trials throughout the research lifecycle, regardless of the funding source. It is integral to validating, organizing, protecting, maintaining and processing scientific data to ensure its accessibility, reliability and quality to users.
What is a uniquely Carolina experience you’ve had?
The willingness to share knowledge with our global community and to help make research better around the world is part of being a Tar Heel.
In June 2024, I was asked to participate in the Fulbright Specialist Program as a research data management specialist and traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, to share information and advice with Pontifical Javierian University. And, while the inaugural year of RDMC has been extraordinarily busy, leadership supported me in helping other universities that need research data management assistance.
