This post is part of our Curators’ Corner series. Every so often we’ll feature a different DCN Curator. The series grew out of a community-building activity wherein curators at our partner organizations interview each other “chain-letter style” in order to get to know each other and their work outside of the DCN better. We hope you enjoy these posts!
Alfredo Gonzalez-Espinoza is the Research and Data Services Librarian at Carnegie Mellon University. Alfredo was interviewed by Sarah Reiff Conell in June 2025.
How did you come to your current position?
During my PhD (Physics) in México and postdoctoral studies at interdisciplinary labs (Biophysics and Computational Genomics in México and Mathematical Biology at Penn), I realized I wanted some sort of staff position where I could be involved in multiple projects and help other researchers, not just focus on my own work. I find it really rewarding to provide solutions and support to others.
I was never convinced about the traditional academic research model because it seems to prioritize being a manager over being a researcher. You’re essentially managing students and postdocs in a hierarchical structure, which wasn’t what I wanted. I was excited to discover library positions where I could help others while still doing interesting, meaningful work.
The way I found this position was quite fortuitous. My wife and I were both job searching when she got a position as a graduate advisor at CMU. They have a program that helps spouses find work in the city or at the university. They told me about this position that hadn’t been filled yet because they needed someone interdisciplinary with a scientific background – it was a perfect match.
It was lucky on both sides: I was looking for exactly this type of role, and they needed someone who could understand researcher needs and “speak the language” of research. That’s essentially how it happened.
What do you do?
I’m the Research & Data Services Librarian and liaison for the Language Technologies Institute (LTI). I provide support on data management and processing, curating datasets deposits in our institutional repository, and teaching complementary materials in workshops the libraries offer (working with Git, Text Analysis, Research Data Management). I am also part of the Data and Code support team, where I support students and faculty with their code design and workflow implementation on diverse programming languages (Julia, Python, Bash, C). On top of that, I do research on developing computational tools/methods for interdisciplinary projects.
My work week is typically structured like this: Mondays for organizing pending tasks and cleaning up my inbox, Tuesday through Thursday for working meetings, consultations, answering support tickets, and teaching workshops, and Fridays dedicated to research.
A major part of my role involves managing the Research Data Alliance community at CMU – a program for students, postdocs, and staff focused on improving research data management practices across campus. I send monthly updates about data policies and developments, and we’re planning to collaborate on building data management plans and templates for labs next semester. I also curate datasets for our institutional repository, KiltHub. We receive about one dataset per week that needs curation, though it varies. Each dataset is different, and I often need to communicate with researchers to ensure proper documentation – like READMEs. When time permits, I focus on librarianship research, particularly developing systematic workflows for semi-automated labeling and organization of digital objects in our archives and special collections. My personal research interests lie in arts and humanities, specifically studying the evolution of patterns in music scores, literature and other arts – trying to quantify traditionally ambiguous concepts.
One aspect I’m grateful for is that my time is almost equally distributed between librarianship, service, and research. This includes cataloging, establishing library systems, dataset cleaning, committee work, consultations, and my own research projects.
How much of your job involves data curation?
I curate around zero to two datasets per week. It varies during the year, some weeks we have none and other weeks we have multiple. For example, this week I have curated three datasets.
Why is data curation important to you?
Data curation ensures accountability and inclusivity in research, it’s a way to verify that we’re conducting research in a way that allows everyone to participate and benefit.
I find it extremely important, and honestly, I’d love to expand curation beyond just datasets to include papers and scientific results, systematically reproducing them. I think it’s crucial to double-check things. This isn’t about distrust – science is fundamentally based on trust, which is good – but science also needs to be reproducible. Data curation is essential for ensuring everything necessary for reproduction is available and accessible.
Why is the Data Curation Network important?
The DCN is essential because it connects us with others who understand the importance of our work and face similar challenges. I don’t think people fully grasp how important data curation is, so having this community helps validate our role. The network also makes our work more resilient by enabling shared learning; we learn from each other’s mistakes and successes. When we’re coordinated, positive changes can happen faster across institutions. The community is particularly valuable for building confidence among new curators. Starting in this field can be intimidating, and having early support significantly impacts someone’s career trajectory. But even experienced curators benefit from the diverse perspectives and resources the network provides, no one can know everything. That’s why I love attending DCN events, I always learn so much from everyone. The combination of professional support, shared resources, and collective problem-solving makes the network invaluable.
If you weren’t doing data curation, what would you be doing?
I would be curating and reproducing scientific results. I’d be working mostly computationally, because that’s where I feel more comfortable, but reproducing computational results would be super fun. I would still be teaching and doing research. I have so many other passions but science fascinates me so much that I would probably be doing something science-adjacent.
What’s your favorite cuisine?
I love food with complex flavors that can be deconstructed in your mouth. Mexican, Indian, Italian, they offer so many variations and possibilities. I enjoy cooking because it’s like doing science you can eat. You mix ingredients, test combinations, and get to enjoy the experiment.
My approach is to read several recipes and then adapt them based on what I think I’ll enjoy most, kind of like a ratatouille process: you imagine how the flavors will combine and what the overall outcome will be. There’s a lot of creativity involved, which makes it really fun.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I enjoy playing video games and music, and exercising while doing something fun (e.g. soccer, biking, bouldering). I have been playing cello for over 15 years, though not as much recently, I enjoy playing by myself and with others (ensembles, orchestras). I also love watching movies, particularly sci-fi and fantasy. I like sci-fi to be consistent and precise or accurate as possible(Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Villeneuve) and fantasy to be creative and imaginative (Terry Gilliam). I listen to a lot of different music, mostly fusion (jazz, folk, metal, progressive rock, old music). My favorite composer is J.S. Bach, and my favorite bands are Panzerballett and Onségen Ensemble.
What’s your favorite city?
Mexico City. Mexico City is so bizarre. It’s so weird. It is like a fractal city, you can find anything you want inside. It’s very cool, diverse in its people, food, traditions, places, and it has a very rich history.
Where would you most like to travel to next?
Traveling internationally hasn’t been on the top of my mind recently because of COVID and other recent political tensions, but if that was not a factor I would visit one of my sisters who lives in Geneva. I haven’t been to Switzerland before. Maybe I’d go to Prague. I have never been to Asia, so I’d love to go somewhere like Cambodia. I’d love to see somewhere really very old. With a long history of building and a tie to ancient pasts.
To learn more about Alfredo, and the datasets he has curated for the DCN, see his curator page!