Announcing Mara Sedlins as the winner of the 2025 RDAP Volunteer of the Year Award, which recognizes an RDAP member who has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the organization. The award celebrates the efforts of the volunteers whose work is vital to RDAP’s continued success.

Mara Sedlins, PhD., is a Data Management Specialist at Morgan Library in the Colorado State University Libraries. Mara was co-chair of RDAP’s DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism) action committee from 2023-2025, and is currently a member of RDAP’s Library Data Services (LiDS) Dataset Task Force. Congratulations, Mara!

Statement from this year's winner

We asked Mara a few questions via email, to get some perspective on the work she has been doing. Here are her responses. 

Q: What first motivated you to volunteer with RDAP, and what keeps you engaged in the community?

I’ve been involved in RDAP since I began working in data librarianship, attending my first RDAP Summit in 2017 in Seattle. My graduate degree is in social psychology, and RDAP’s learning resources and community have been instrumental in building my expertise in research data management and keeping my knowledge up to date. Eager to give back to the community, I volunteered on the Summit Planning Committee in 2019. More recently, my volunteer activity with the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) Action Committee was inspired by attending the first RDAP DEIA Town Hall in 2023. After participating in that discussion, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the newly formed DEIA committee. I had been involved in DEIA efforts at my local institution since 2020, and I was interested in expanding the scope of this work. In particular, as a white, cisgender, able-bodied woman working in a profession dominated by people with the same identities, I have felt a responsibility to use the privilege I have to advocate for a more inclusive profession.

Q: Reflecting back, is there a particular moment, project, or achievement from your volunteer work that feels especially meaningful to you?

I am especially proud of the work that the DEIA Action Committee did to advocate for and organize a DEIA Workshop for RDAP members in 2024. We were able to hire consultants with expertise in DEIA issues in academic libraries and data librarianship who provided a comprehensive training with topics including white supremacy and racism in libraries, identity and positionality, and working with alternative frameworks. The series of three workshops was complemented by smaller meetings with unlearning and accountability partners, where participants had the chance to discuss additional readings and implications for our own work. We also shared insights from the workshop in a panel at the 2024 RDAP Summit. By establishing a common understanding of fundamental DEIA concepts, the workshop set important groundwork for the development of DEIA competencies for data professionals, a key longer-term goal of the action committee. 

Q: How do you hope your service will influence the RDAP community and inspire future volunteers?

After helping to organize and participating in the DEIA Workshop, I created a history and timeline of the committee to onboard new committee volunteers and inform our next goals. I interviewed members of the original DEIA Task Force that had recommended the formation of the committee, aiming to capture institutional knowledge and set up the committee for a continuing vision and commitment to this work across changing committee membership and annual DEIA priorities. I also worked with committee members to expand on a list of learning resources that was crowdsourced by DEIA Workshop participants and prepare it for eventual sharing with the broader RDAP community, and we held a second RDAP DEIA Town Hall in 2025 to discuss future goals and challenges. My hope is that these activities will support the continued prioritization of DEIA perspectives in RDAP’s organizational culture during a difficult time when diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility need to be centered more than ever.

About this award

The Volunteer of the Year award recognizes an RDAP member who has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the organization. The award celebrates the efforts of the volunteers whose work is vital to RDAP’s continued success. Learn more about the RDAP Member Awards at https://rdapassociation.org/membership/awards