Manuel de la Cruz Gutierrez — formerly our Research & Knowledge Management Librarian — has assumed a new role as Director of Data & Innovation Services at the Biomedical Library.  In this role, Manuel will expand upon his work in liaising with research communities, forging and strengthening relationships with research cores and other campus partners, and spearheading new and innovative services.  For example, he has made recent strides in launching our Bioinformatics Service which complements services and resources offered by Perelman School of Medicine’s Institute for Biomedical Informatics by offering workshops on the suite of NCBI databases and a new Penn Libraries subscription to BioCyc.  He is also currently working with colleagues at the Biomedical Library to evaluate various tools for visualizing data to enable us to launch visualization services for researchers and boost our poster printing design offerings. And, he will build upon our author network and research impact visualization services as well.

Manuel will work closely with Barbara Kountouzi in her oversight of our 3D Printing Services, working towards expanding those services to include a design-thinking and Virtual Reality room on the Stemmler side of the Biomedical Library. Manuel will also supervise our Innovation Intern who has been working on various types of projects for faculty as a pilot service which we hope to further develop.

Congratulations to Manuel! Stay tuned for updates on his progress as he and his team bring our innovation and visualization services to new heights.