Meet Rachel Roth Sawatzky: One of the Faces of ICPSR

Rachel Roth Sawatzky is an ICPSR data depositor and Assistant Director of the University of Michigan’s Prevention, Education, Assistance & Resources (PEAR) office, where she helps translate lived experiences into trauma‑informed prevention work. She values ICPSR for its warm, “we’ve got you” support and clear, researcher-centered guidance, making it easy to deposit responsibly and ensure important datasets can live on and be used well.

Q: What is a favorite memory or instance you have working with ICPSR? What makes ICPSR a great place?

A: A favorite ICPSR memory for me was reaching out about depositing a dataset and getting an incredibly warm, concrete, “we’ve got you” response from the start. Lynette Hoelter and David Thomas didn’t just say yes — they immediately offered multiple easy ways to move forward, and clearly explained what would happen next. What made ICPSR feel like a great place in that moment was how transparent and researcher-centered the guidance was: they clarified that depositing is free, explained how ICPSR’s membership consortium model supports curation and access, and walked through realistic release options based on disclosure risk and data characteristics. They also set expectations about timelines without overpromising and even offered a practical alternative if immediate release was needed. Overall, it felt like working with people who are both deeply knowledgeable and genuinely invested in helping data live on responsibly and be useful to the research community.

Read more about Rachel.

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