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!
Joe Edgerton is a Research Data Management Librarian at the University of Virginia. Joe was interviewed by Chasz Griego in July 2026.
Chasz: How did you come to your current position?
Joe: It’s a funny story. I was working in science communication, 3-plus years ago, and I was looking at data-adjacent, science-adjacent kinds of positions. And one career I found was being a data librarian. So I cold-called and cold-emailed a couple people who had those positions. One of them turns out to be my future boss here at the University of Virginia. I really thought their position sounded cool. I realized I would need to go to library school, so I worked part time while going to school full time, got a master’s in information science, and then emailed back my future boss and said, “Hey, do you have any job openings?” And she said, “Well, funnily enough, by the time you graduate we actually will.” It worked out from there and the rest is history.
Chasz: What do you do?
Joe: As a research data management librarian, a big part of my job is to evaluate the research data life cycle of a researcher’s project and try my best to promote good planning for, access to, and sharing of data within the data lifecycle. This manifests through workshops, going into classes and teaching, doing different lectures or little seminars, doing some blog posts on the library page, and other communication/outreach things like that. Engagement with academic departments is essential to bring awareness about not just the library, but specifically about data management to researchers.
Chasz: How much of your job involves data curation?
Joe: I would say some but not a ton. I teach more about curation principles (e.g., tidy data) then spending time applying those principles to real datasets. I occasionally examine specific datasets in consultations but I don’t work on heavier workloads like repository submissions. However, as a DCN curator, I have curated data from a different institution under the CURATED principles, which I was very proud of. I’m always interested in seeing different ways that people work with information, and learning the best way to preserve that information.
Chasz: Why is data curation important to you?
Joe: I think the main reason I came over into this profession was because I noticed a lot of issues in datasets. I saw a lot of cases where data curation was sorely needed—whether it was an individual researcher, a whole field, or even at the national level—with issues about data standards, metadata, documentation, and reproducibility. It’s kind of wild how inconsistent some things are, and I don’t think it’s until you get into a profession that looks at things closely that you realize: the deeper you dive, the messier it gets. I appreciated that perspective, and I wanted to be in a position that helps improve that situation for people.
Chasz: Why is the Data Curation Network important?
Joe: I personally think it’s really annoying to try to reinvent the wheel a bunch of times, and to feel like you don’t know the answer and there’s no one there to help you. I feel like DCN addresses those issues by being a good bedrock of info and connection to experts, to people who have dealt with things that you’re trying to face. You have a place where you feel like it’s okay to ask questions, because maybe things aren’t clear and someone else is like, “yeah, that wasn’t clear, but this is what you should do.” So I appreciate that.
Chasz: If you weren’t doing data curation, what would you be doing?
Joe: I’ve always appreciated good communication and design in information resources, so maybe something related to user experience (UX) or user studies. Library school taught me not to blame the user for errors but instead focus on the systems that they need to use. I feel like in the information age we need to have good, clear resources and systems so maybe some kind of role related to that framing.
Chasz: What’s your favorite cuisine?
Joe: I really like Latin food. I like tostones, tacos, salsas, all kinds of stuff—making them, but also eating them. I guess that’d probably be one of my favorite cuisines.
Chasz: What do you like to do outside of work?
Joe: I like doing stuff with plants now—that’s been a hobby I wanted to get more into recently. Learning about native plants in the Piedmont area of Virginia, walking on trails and observing them, or planting them in my yard and collecting seeds from them. I just started my own garden too! But this year is kind of the growing or the gathering stage, so eventually things will hopefully start to take hold.
Chasz: What’s your favorite city?
Joe: I grew up in Oregon, but I like a lot of places there so I don’t know if I have a favorite. I’m gonna be a little cheeky here—DCN had their curated training in Minneapolis so I’ll say Minneapolis was really cool. I was really blown away by the Mississippi River, the bridges—it just seemed really nice. They’re always in the top 10 for parks, always in the top 10 for bikeability or whatnot; it seems like a really decent place.
Chasz: Where would you most like to travel to next (state/country/continent/city)?
Joe: I’d like to go to North Carolina. I haven’t been to any place except Raleigh, really, for an extended period of time, and I’d like to just travel around, see more of it — kind of the adjacent states to Virginia, in the surrounding area. Maybe take a road trip to the Outer Banks, and just see a couple different spots around that people have always talked about.