Informatics Program Manager
Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine
David Higgins is a Informatics Program Manager responsible for increasing the accessibility of the Center’s resources to the D3b Center’s research collaborators. He is working to develop training materials for researchers using D3b tools in order to accelerate the transition from data to knowledge to impact. Additionally, David communicates with researchers to learn about their needs, pointing them to the best tools for their particular projects. If these tool don’t exist, he brings their requests back to the ADAPT and Bioinformatics Units to guide the development of new software tools and pipelines.
Prior to joining CHOP in March of 2020, David performed research as part of a PhD program, learning to use high-throughput sequencing sets to identify genomic variants. Following his PhD, he spent three years working as a visiting professor at liberal arts colleges where he taught classes in biology and genetics. He hopes to continue to leverage his background in genomics and teaching skills into communicating with collaborators of the D3b Center.
David earned a BS from NC State University before completing a PhD from the University of Georgia. He is inspired by the knowledge that the files in D3b’s repository represent not just individual human beings, but sick children. It carries with it a particular gravity to the work of the Center. David is confident that if he can help accelerate the process from data to knowledge to impact, he can support the D3b Center’s vision of finding breakthroughs for every child, everywhere, every time.