Sharing George Thomas' legacy with colleagues & scholars

Hi,
Some of you worked with George Thomas, my fellow W3C Government Linked Data Working Group co-chair (2011-2012) and my friend, so I wanted to share a good news story & give a progress update.

In June, a public announcement at the US National Health Datapalooza (Washington DC) was made to honor George's work in the field of health data science, specifically in relation to publishing Linked Data on human health.  A generous post graduate fellowship in health data science & engineering was made to honor the life & legacy of George.[1]  George pioneered the site healthdata.gov (not to be confused with the site healthcare.gov).  For years, George tirelessly spearheaded efforts to make healthcare & life sciences more discoverable on the Web & more usable for us all.[2] 

George literally taught several US Government executives the words "open and machine readable" until it became embodied in a Presidential mandate.[3]  This week, the inaugural recipient of the George Thomas Post-Graduate Fellowship: Kevin Emmett, a doctoral student in the Department of Physics at Columbia University was awarded this fellowship.[4] In this open letter below, George’s wife, Suzanne Thomas (copied), congratulates Kevin (copied) and reflects on influence of George’s work on the next generation of data scientists and engineers.[5]

Thanks to all of you who helped make this happen & who publish & consume open & machine readable information on human health.

Cheers,

Bernadette Hyland
CEO, 3 Round Stones, Inc.

http://3roundstones.com
http://about.me/bernadettehyland 


[1] http://healthdatapalooza.org/health-data-consortium-announces-memorial-health-data-sciences-fellowship/

[2] http://healthdata.gov/

[3] http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-13.pdf

[4] https://systemsbiology.columbia.edu/people/kevin-emmett

[5] http://www.healthdataconsortium.org/blog_home.asp?Display=100