Dr. Dharma Akmon is the new managing director at the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Her duties include overseeing the daily operations of IRIS and coordinating outreach to current and prospective members of the IRIS consortium.
Dr. Akmon comes from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research where she served as Director of Product Management and Director of the National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture, among other duties.
She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants involving data sharing and curation, and has published several papers on similar topics.
“Bringing high quality data and tools to the research community has been a theme of my academic career,” she said. “I’m very excited at the prospect of working with member universities and the higher education community at large to understand, explain and improve the public value of university research using the IRIS-UMETRICS dataset and our campus-specific reports provided to member institutions.”
“Dharma is perfectly suited to take IRIS through our next stage of development,” said Jason Owen-Smith, IRIS executive director. “As we approach our 10th anniversary, we’re looking forward to expanding our engagement to universities and individual researchers alike.”
Dr. Akmon holds a Ph.D and master’s degree in Information from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in History from Michigan State University.
Dr. Akmon replaces Nancy Calvin-Naylor, who was managing director from 2016 until summer 2023, when she was named Assistant Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs at University of Michigan.
Dr. Akmon can be reached at dharmrae@umich.edu.