Paul Uhlir

Paul Uhlir is the Director of the CODATA Data Policy Committee; an expert at the intersection of science, technology, and law; a former Director of the Board on Research Data and Information at the National Academy of Sciences; and a consultant on information policy and management.  

Mr. Uhlir is a consultant in information policy and management. He was Scholar at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, DC in 2015-2016, and Director of the Board on Research Data and Information at the NAS, 2008-2015. Paul was employed at the NAS from 1985-2015, first as a senior staff officer for the Space Studies Board, where he worked on solar system exploration and environmental remote sensing studies for NASA, and then as associate executive director of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications. He directed the Office of International S&T Information for eight years after that, where he organized projects and meetings on scientific data throughout the world, and from 1992 to 2015 he was director of the US CODATA at the NAS. Before joining the NAS, he worked in the general counsel's office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC.

Paul has written or edited 27 books and over 70 articles, mostly in data law, policy, and management. He speaks worldwide on these topics and consults to governments, professional organizations, and universities. In 1997 he won the National Research Council’s Special Achievement Award and in 2010 the CODATA International Prize, both in the field of data policy. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.