As I have said before, I take every opportunity to sing the praises of the 1,700 men and women who work at NLM and demonstrate their commitment to advance our important mission. Every day, NLM staff serve science and society by transforming information into knowledge, which enables researchers, clinicians, and people around the world use a wealth of biomedical data to improve health.
This month NLM honored our resilient and resourceful staff with an awards ceremony that looked a little different than previous years. Usually, we host an annual ceremony in the Natcher Auditorium on the NIH campus to allow staff to gather and celebrate the accomplishments of their peers.
While our awards celebration was different this year because we weren’t able to join together in person due to COVID-19, it still gave me great pleasure to recognize and honor the many individuals and teams at NLM who have shown outstanding commitment and accomplishment through special acts of service, exemplary performance, and crucial moments of leadership. This year, our awards were presented to honor a variety of achievements, but most notably, to honor the incredible resiliency and productivity of our workforce since most NLM staff entered an environment of maximum telework in March.
Before I share more about the awards, I want to take a moment to extend my deep appreciation for all the technical staff at NLM who have ensured that NLM continues to meet its mission of serving scientists and society across the globe. Our staff has worked tirelessly to make certain that NLM continues to operate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic seamlessly. They’ve done it all – from making sure that all NLM staff can continue to work from home during these challenging times, to guaranteeing that people around the world continue to have access to NLM’s suite of offerings such as ClinicalTrials.gov, GenBank, PubMed, and PubMed Central.
This year, we recognized 584 staff for an array of accomplishments. We honored many individuals and teams for their special acts of service and exemplary performance including the design, implementation, and evaluation of the trans-NLM Data Science @NLM program (recognized as a model program across the federal sector), rapid response to the sharing of molecular data and biomedical literature related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and maintenance of library and data center operations in a safe and stable manner during the challenging COVID-19 pandemic.
We applauded staff who provided consistent, results-focused strategic leadership associated with the restructuring of NLM’s more than 8,000-member Network of the National Library of Medicine, launched a new version of PubMed and phase one of the NIH Preprint Pilot. We recognized our scientists who used machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithm research to support infectious disease detection from clinical images, and staff who assisted in delivering technology and administrative support services to ensure the continuity of NLM operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We also honored individuals with landmark years of service, including 16 people who have worked in the federal government for 30 years or more. They were joined by 29 staffers with 20 years of service and another 20 with 10 years — representing years upon years of experience and dedication to public service. Their work has made a lasting difference to NLM and to those who use our resources.
In addition to honoring the recipients themselves, these awards also bring important recognition to the talents and contributions of NLM across the biomedical research enterprise.
As the year comes to a close, I want to recognize every member of our team at NLM for their momentous efforts that have kept NLM at the top of our game by demonstrating our ability to be resilient, relevant, and reinvent the way we do our work, particularly in response to the challenges presented by COVID-19. Our team at NLM has truly gone above and beyond!
Guest NLM contributors: Sarah Ashley Jolly, Amy Powers, and Diane Tuncer.