Ceilyn Boyd

Ceilyn Boyd is the Dataverse Development Project Manager at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences (IQSS), overseeing the software development process to ensure the team meets its project, partnership, and grant responsibilities.

Previously, Boyd established and led the Harvard Library Research Data Services Program, which connects the Harvard community to resources and services throughout the research data lifecycle. Additional work at Harvard Library included taxonomy development, management of large-scale manuscript digitization projects, oversight of library collections as data initiatives, and leadership of major cross-organization strategic portfolios.

Before joining Harvard, Boyd held technical roles as a software engineer and technical project manager, specializing in scientific data visualization, computer graphics, and special effects. Boyd’s experience includes positions at SRI International, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pacific Title & Art Studio, Mitsubishi Electric, and BBN Corporation.

Boyd holds a B.A. in linguistics from Stanford University, an M.A. in anthropology and women’s studies from Brandeis University, and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in library and information science from Simmons University. Boyd's research focuses on modeling research data, the sociotechnical characteristics of research data repositories, and investigating how data curators identify, define, and repair research data within these repositories.