Dr. Rachel Liao, PhD is Head of Scientific Strategy in the Broad Institute’s Data Sciences Platform, where she leads strategic partnerships with academic and industrial collaborators to enable research into the genetics and genomics of disease at scale, leveraging cloud software products developed by the DSP. As part of this role, she works with the Broad’s Chief Data Officer to lead the NHGRI’s Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics (AnVIL) Lab-space, a data program currently storing and managing more than 10 PB of genomics and clinical data in Terra, DSP’s cloud data platform.

Dr. Liao began her 14-year career at the Broad doing research in the Broad’s Cancer Program in 2009, and received her PhD in functional cancer genomics from Harvard in 2013. She conducted postdoctoral research in common complex disease genetics in the Broad’s Medical and Population Genetics program, after which she worked as the Broad’s alliance manager for the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health to support the development of genomic data standards and promote data sharing for genomics data. Following this, she was Scientific Advisor to the Director of the Institute, where she oversaw numerous institutional priorities related to data storage, access, and use, as well as community engagement, and was instrumental in launching the International Common Disease Alliance, an international scientific community dedicated to accelerating progress translating from genetic maps, to molecular mechanisms, to physiology and medicine.