Michael Huerta, PhD, NLM Deputy Director for Operations and Innovation (Acting), Associate Director for Strategy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s National Library of Medicine (NLM) will retire effective January 11.

Since joining NIH's National Institute of Mental Health in 1991, Dr. Huerta made major contributions to the development and implementation of open science, as well as large-scale, open, digital biomedical research and technology initiatives. He joined NLM in 2011 where he directed the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI). Dr. Huerta developed the NLM Strategic Plan as well as frameworks for innovation and new growth opportunities. He provided administrative oversight for the overall NLM research portfolio and served as NLM's Chief Diversity Officer.

"Dr. Huerta has been a champion of innovation at NLM. He also worked tirelessly to realize the promise of data science and open science for biomedicine," said NLM Acting Director, Stephen Sherry, PhD. "We will certainly miss the creativity and enthusiasm he brought to NLM."

NLM is currently working on an interim plan to redistribute Dr. Huerta's responsibilities across NLM leadership and developing a strategy to address the responsibilities of this position in the long term.