Wendy Watkins

2013 William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative

Wendy Watkins' first professional job was as a hockey sociologist, a true example of value- or knowledge-free social research. Her introduction to ICPSR came in 1982 as a participant in the eight-week Summer Program, where she was fortunate to be able to study advanced statistics with top social scientists. She was a Council member from 1996 to 2000 and has been Carleton University's Official Representative since 1984.

Watkins, with Ernie Boyko, is a founding member of the Canadian Data Liberation Initiative (DLI). This had a profound effect on the Canadian data scene as, with the work of dedicated members of the Data Liberation Army, the number of university data services increased to 75 from 9. The DLI also led to the establishment of the Canadian Network of Research Data Centres (CNRDC). She also contributed to the establishment of <odesi> (Ontario Data Documentation Extraction Service and Infrastructure), a DDI-based Web data service for Ontario offered through Scholars Portal.

She is a long-standing member of the International Federation of Data Organizations (IFDO) and served on its board until 2009. She also was the Canadian Secretary of IASSIST for several years and has held other administrative roles in the organization. She currently is the Data Librarian at Carleton University and is planning a sabbatical in the near future.