This post is authored by Avianna Wooten, Data Management & Sharing Specialist at Washington University in St. Louis and first time All Hands Meeting attendee
A takeaway from the 2025 DCN All Hands (AHM) as a first-time attendee: I could really go for deviled eggs.
As part of my 2025 DCN All Hands Meeting (AHM) experience, I had the pleasure of exploring Madison, Wisconsin through the Dine Arounds. The dine-arounds were informal dinners with fellow AHM attendees and usually featured a restaurant of interest. Through the dine-arounds, I met a whiskey connoisseur, a gym devotee, and a potential Disney princess (somehow their stories often involved befriending animals). I learned that deviled eggs were a specialty that a fellow attendee liked to make, and I haven’t stopped craving devilled eggs since. Probably more importantly, I learned more about my peers as people and about the various contexts that situate our work.
A key takeaway from the 2025 DCN AHM: We are stronger, more resourceful, and more resilient together.
I started my All Hands experience with DCN’s CURATED Workshop led by DCN members and joined by fellow first-time attendees. While there were several practice exercises incorporated into the CURATED curriculum, workshop attendees were also encouraged to discuss our unique institutional circumstances and differing workflows. One through-line from the CURATED workshop to the larger AHM is that while all our institutions, workflows, and roles may have been different, we shared similar foundational concerns around data ethics, curation, and infrastructure sustainability. I found it valuable to discuss our diverse perspectives and challenges, as well as our varied approaches to addressing these
challenges. By surfacing shared values and points of concern, we were able to identify current and potential community resources available through the DCN.
Closing thoughts
At the time of writing this blog post, it has been about a month post 2025 DCN All Hands Meeting (AHM). Since the meeting, I’ve been reading previous Peer-Compares and DCN primers. While I continue to utilize the resources the DCN provides, I’ve also been considering ways to be a more active contributor to our shared community of practice. I’ve appreciated the DCN community even before joining a member institution, and it has been a special experience to get to know our community better through the DCN AHM.
P.S. Shoutout to my wonderful CURATED workshop instructors Jen Darragh, Sophia Lafferty-Hess, Joanna Thielen, and Trisha Adamus!
The DCN All Hands Meeting was held on June 23-26 in Madison, Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.