Farewell to Maria Gould

California Digital Library (CDL) announces that, effective January 16, 2024, Maria Gould will be departing CDL and embarking on a new journey as Director of Product at DataCite. We’re thrilled for her and wish her nothing but success in this exciting opportunity!

Maria joined CDL and the UC3 team in November 2018 and took over responsibility for CDL’s persistent identifiers (PIDs) portfolio. During her tenure, she has led and supported infrastructure development and community initiatives focused on implementing and leveraging persistent identifiers to further the goals of a more open and connected knowledge ecosystem. Among many activities, Maria’s work over the past five years has included:

• Managing CDL’s EZID service to support DOI and ARK registrations across the UC campuses
• Supporting the global ARK community through EZID, participation in the ARK Alliance, and leading development of next-generation infrastructure for the global N2T resolver
• Launching the Research Organization Registry (ROR), a community-led initiative to provide the first open identifier for organizations
• Organizing the 2020 and 2021 PIDapalooza conferences
• Collaborating with community partners to establish and promote best practices for the adoption and use of persistent identifiers and associated infrastructure

Over the past few years, there has been a growing awareness of the important role that persistent identifiers play in supporting the goals of open scholarship for an array of stakeholders, and Maria has been at the forefront of these developments and conversations.

While we are saddened to see Maria go, we are excited and proud of her appointment to become DataCite’s first Director of Product during an important time in the organization’s growth. As both a founding and current member of DataCite, CDL has been a long-time supporter of DataCite’s mission to connect and advance knowledge. DataCite and CDL have a rich history of collaboration and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the organization and seeing the product portfolio grow under Maria’s leadership.

The day-to-day needs of EZID users and other core aspects of the identifiers portfolio will be supported on an interim basis by members of the UC3 team while we undertake the recruiting process to fill Maria’s position. As DataCite is one of ROR’s operating organizations, Maria will continue her work on ROR after the transition. If you have questions about how Maria’s departure impacts your work or projects, please get in touch at uc3@ucop.edu or ezid@ucop.edu

Please join us in wishing Maria a fond farewell and congratulating her on this exciting appointment!