I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and the Program Director for the Monarch Initiative. I am a research geneticist and a biocurator by training and I found my way into knowledge representation with semantics and ontologies by way of computational biology in comparative genomics. My expertise, education, and enthusiasm span genomics, biocuration, knowledge representation, standards development, and data harmonization – and the development of software tools to advance these fields. The major motivations for my research are to leverage my wealth of knowledge in comparative genomics over the past 2 decades to advance our understanding of human health & disease with translational and integrative data science, and to continuously improve on socio-technological practices to build and coordinate diverse research communities in these fields of study. Biomedical researchers need to identify novel disease genes and understand disease mechanisms; clinicians need to diagnose diseases and optimize treatments. The improved understanding of the genetic basis of disease that can be drawn from the resources provided by The Monarch Initiative helps achieve both goals. I also strive to improve diversity in representation within the genomics and bioinformatics research workforces, and to this end, I contribute to efforts towards a more inclusive approach to the development of standards in genomics and health data sharing.