Melissa Haendel is the Chief Research Informatics Officer at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She directs the Center for Data to Health (CD2H), the Monarch Initiative, and the National Covid Cohort Collaborative. Her background is molecular genetics and developmental biology as well as translational informatics, with a focus over the past decade on open science and semantic engineering. Dr. Haendel’s vision is to weave together healthcare systems, basic science research, and patient generated data through development of data integration technologies and innovative data capture strategies. Dr. Haendel’s research has focused on integration of genotype-phenotype data to improve rare disease diagnosis and mechanism discovery. She also leads and participates in international standards organizations to support improved data sharing and utility worldwide.