Queen’s University Library is excited to announce Barbara Kern as the new Academic Director of the Queen’s Research Data Centre (QRDC), effective June 1, 2025 for a five-year term.
Barbara has more than 25 years of experience in academic librarianship, including long-term demonstrated success and achievement in senior roles. She was most recently the Director of Sciences and Social Sciences and Director of the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago.
A keen collaborator, Barbara has spearheaded exciting partnerships while at the University of Chicago, including creating the Kathleen A. Zar Room, a technology rich 3D visualization laboratory in the John Crerar Library in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Research Computing Center; with the University of Chicago's College and Department of Computer Science to create an 80-computer laboratory in the John Crerar Library; and with the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Astrophysical Research Consortium, and Fermi National Laboratory to preserve and provide access to 100 TB of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Barbara is excited to take on the role of Academic Director of the QRDC and looking forward to working closely with others on campus, at CRDCN, StatsCan and colleagues across Canada.
The QRDC is a member of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN), which provides researchers with access to microdata masterfiles from population and health surveys. The CRDCN is a premier research and training platform for over 2,000 researchers in the quantitative social and health sciences in Canada. Funded by SSHRC, CIHR, CFI, the FRQ, Statistics Canada, and 42 primary and affiliated partner universities, including Queen's University, the CRDCN provides unique access to Statistics Canada data on 33 campuses across the country to advance knowledge and inform public policy. CRDCN is recognized as one of Canada’s Major Science Initiatives.
