Mission
Ripeta’s mission is to assess, design, and disseminate practices and measures to improve the reproducibility of science with minimal burden on scientists. We focus on assessing the quality of reporting and the robustness of the scientific method.
Team
Leslie McIntosh, PhD
Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder
Dr. Leslie McIntosh, PhD, MPH is the founder and CEO who is an internationally known consultant, speaker, and researcher passionate about mentoring the next generation of data scientists. She is active in the Research Data Alliance, grew the St. Louis Machine Learning and Data Science Meetup to over 1500 participants, and was a fellow with a San Francisco based VC firm. She recently concluded as the Director of Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMI) at Washington University in St. Louis where she led a dynamic team of 25 individuals facilitating biomedical informatics services. Dr. McIntosh has a focus of assessing and improving the full research cycle (data collection, management, sharing, discoverability) and making the research process reproducible. She holds a Masters and PhD in Public Health with concentrations in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Saint Louis University.
Cynthia Hudson Vitale, MA
Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder
Cynthia R. Hudson Vitale, MA is a co-Founder of ripeta. She has over six years of experience providing research data services support to scientific principal investigators in a variety of domains, specifically in the areas of data management and data curation. She has worked with faculty on projects to facilitate data sharing and interoperability while meeting faculty research data needs throughout the research life-cycle. Her current research seeks to improve research reproducibility, addressing both technical and cultural barriers.
Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder
Cynthia R. Hudson Vitale, MA is a co-Founder of ripeta. She has over six years of experience providing research data services support to scientific principal investigators in a variety of domains, specifically in the areas of data management and data curation. She has worked with faculty on projects to facilitate data sharing and interoperability while meeting faculty research data needs throughout the research life-cycle. Her current research seeks to improve research reproducibility, addressing both technical and cultural barriers.
Chris Westling
Data Integration Engineer
Mr. Westling is an experienced developer with primary programming skills in Java and Python. He enjoys wrangling a myriad of data formats including XSLT/XML, JSON, and RDF, and he is adept at transforming plain text into machine readable data. Within the Cornell University Library system, he spent six years as an applications system analyst working on multiple projects including the Cornell VIVO instance - cleaning, transforming and analyzing bibliographic data. He is well-versed in Semantic Web principles, ontology editing, and can write complex SPARQL queries.
Data Integration Engineer
Mr. Westling is an experienced developer with primary programming skills in Java and Python. He enjoys wrangling a myriad of data formats including XSLT/XML, JSON, and RDF, and he is adept at transforming plain text into machine readable data. Within the Cornell University Library system, he spent six years as an applications system analyst working on multiple projects including the Cornell VIVO instance - cleaning, transforming and analyzing bibliographic data. He is well-versed in Semantic Web principles, ontology editing, and can write complex SPARQL queries.
Ruthie Whittam
Lead Data Scientist
Ruthie Whittam, MS is a recent graduate of St. Louis University's Master of Health Data Science program. Ruthie has spent four years aggregating, wrangling, and manipulating the data from electronic health records for clinical and financial reporting, honing her skills for data science and machine learning.
Lead Data Scientist
Ruthie Whittam, MS is a recent graduate of St. Louis University's Master of Health Data Science program. Ruthie has spent four years aggregating, wrangling, and manipulating the data from electronic health records for clinical and financial reporting, honing her skills for data science and machine learning.
Paola Ortega Saborío
NLP Data Engineer
Paola recently concluded her BS in Computer Science at the University of Costa Rica. Her role at Ripeta concentrates on designing, building, and evaluating software that is scalable and efficient. She is passionate about making a positive impact in the scientific community through technological innovation.
NLP Data Engineer
Paola recently concluded her BS in Computer Science at the University of Costa Rica. Her role at Ripeta concentrates on designing, building, and evaluating software that is scalable and efficient. She is passionate about making a positive impact in the scientific community through technological innovation.
Josh Sumner
Data Scientist
Josh Sumner is a data scientist at Ripeta using R to assist in analyzing data to evaluate research. He graduated from Appalachian State University in May of 2019 with a BS in Strength and Conditioning and a minor in Statistics. Josh is planning to pursue an MS in biostatistics in 2020 and is particularly interested in statistics, its applications in health science, and its role in sports science research.
Data Scientist
Josh Sumner is a data scientist at Ripeta using R to assist in analyzing data to evaluate research. He graduated from Appalachian State University in May of 2019 with a BS in Strength and Conditioning and a minor in Statistics. Josh is planning to pursue an MS in biostatistics in 2020 and is particularly interested in statistics, its applications in health science, and its role in sports science research.
August DeVore Welles, MS
Editor
August recently graduated from Clark University with her MS in Climate Change Science and Forced Migration. Her studies at Clark were mainly focused on bridging the information gap between science, policy, and humanitarianism. Her role at Ripeta varies from developing blog posts and Ripeta publications to writing press releases, maintaining our social media pages, and editing outside publications.
Editor
August recently graduated from Clark University with her MS in Climate Change Science and Forced Migration. Her studies at Clark were mainly focused on bridging the information gap between science, policy, and humanitarianism. Her role at Ripeta varies from developing blog posts and Ripeta publications to writing press releases, maintaining our social media pages, and editing outside publications.
Leah Haynes
Intern
Leah is currently pursuing a BS in Mathematics and a BMUS in violin performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a Ripeta intern, she serves in various capacities including testing Ripeta software, developing Ripeta publications and reports, and independently developing R and Python skills through small projects.
Intern
Leah is currently pursuing a BS in Mathematics and a BMUS in violin performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a Ripeta intern, she serves in various capacities including testing Ripeta software, developing Ripeta publications and reports, and independently developing R and Python skills through small projects.
To connect with us professionally or
to learn about employment opportunities, visit our LinkedIn page.