Ryan Jacobs receives inaugural UW-Madison Open Award

Ryan Jacobs, a staff scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of the inaugural recipients of the UW-Madison Open Awards. The awards were established to celebrate campus community members who are driving open research practices and culture at the university.

The awards are sponsored by the Data Science Institute, Open Source Program Office, and the Libraries, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The awards ceremony, introduced by Vice Chancellor for Research Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, took place in late March, 2025, at the Data Science Research Bazaar held in the Discovery Building.

Jacobs received an Open Scholarship Award, recognizing his commitment to open scholarship, software, and data, which is helping to lead a revolution in machine learning and data-centric thinking in materials.

Open practices, which vary across academic fields, include open access publishing, open data, open education, open source software and hardware, open science, and more. These practices support the Wisconsin Idea through the transparent sharing of resources and knowledge for the public good.

The ceremony also honored several other award recipients and inducted 13 people and groups from across campus into the Open Hall of Fame. They will have their names displayed in the forthcoming Digital Scholarship Hub located in Memorial Library.

A version of this press release was originally published by the Data Science Institute.