Section supervisor Tamara Goyea helped improve public understanding of COVID-19, through her work on the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) COVID-19 Data Repository, commonly referred to as the COVID-19 dashboard.

For her critical contributions to the globally recognized JHU Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC), which helped the world understand the pandemic, Goyea received an Outstanding Technical Contribution Award at the 2022 Women of Color STEM Conference in Detroit, MI.

Goyea's cross-university team automated the ongoing creation of one of the most recognized and relied-on COVID-19 datasets: the JHU CRC case and death data.

She was a driving force for data quality and assurance. At the pandemic’s peak, this dataset was being requested more than 4.5 billion times daily and has been requested more than 280 billion times to date.

News organizations like CNN relied upon it, and its data has been republished by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the official CDC COVID Data Tracker. TIME magazine named the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center one of the “Best Inventions of 2020.”

“Her contributions and leadership skills have improved the quality of the dashboard and helped make it as successful as it is,” said Lauren Gardner Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, JHU.

Goyea also gives back to her community, encouraging underrepresented groups to pursue science, technology, engineering, and, math (STEM) careers.