Felix Emeka Anyiam (Initial Co-Lead CODATA Connect 2019-2024)
In this post, Felix Emeka Anyiam, who was Initial Co-Lead of CODATA Connect, our Early Career Researcher initiative, from 2019-2024, reflects on his experiences over eight years of participating in CODATA activities. In particular, he emphasizes the benefits of sustained collaborations and connections: “long-term, networked training matters more than one-off workshops” and praises the CODATA Connect and CODATA Data Schools model which allowed students to return in more responsible, leadership roles. Felix’s story shows the CODATA Connect provided an environment and collaborations that benefited Felix in this journey. But it also shows how Felix’s open and generous character, his enthusiasm to participate, brought rewards. Please enjoy this uplifting story! Simon HODSON, Executive Director, CODATA.
Welcome to Trieste: how it started, 2017
In August 2017, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, I encountered research data science not merely as a set of analytical tools, but as a global public good. I arrived as a public health researcher from Nigeria, trained in epidemiology and biostatistics, seeking stronger quantitative approaches to interrogate health systems data. I left with something more enduring: an entry point into a global ecosystem shaped by CODATA’s commitment to open science, equity, and long-term capacity building.
The CODATA-RDA Research Data Science Summer School in Trieste offered more than technical instruction. It introduced a way of thinking about data, FAIR by design, ethically governed, and shared across disciplines and borders. Participants from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were not positioned as beneficiaries, but as peers and future contributors. CODATA functioned not as a sponsor, but as a convenor of people, ideas, and responsibility. That distinction would shape my professional trajectory in the years that followed.
Read more on the CODATA blog https://codata.org/blog/2026/03/03/sustaining-research-data-capacity-reflections-from-a-codata-journey-2017-2025/