Melissa Haendel is the Director of the Center for Data to Health (CD2H) at Oregon Health & Science University, and the Director of Translational Data Science at Oregon State University. 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 co-leads the GA4GH Clinical and Phenotypic Data Capture and Exchange workstream and the Monarch Initiative Driver Project, and participates in a number of other international standards organizations to support improved phenotypic data sharing and utility worldwide.