Mr. Thomson currently serves as the Chief Information Officer for the National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute at the National Institutes of Health. He leads an IT operation that supports the Institute’s
research mission and administrative needs. This includes operation of a multi-petabyte scale storage
platform and high-performance computational resources that serve the 71 labs within the Division of
Intramural Research. He has built a substantial software development capability for applications with a
scientific, administrative, or business focus. He supports NHLBI data science initiatives for the Heart,
Lung, Blood and Sleep (HLBS) research community and co-leads the NHLBI’s BioData Catalyst cloudbased data repository, analytical and bioinformatics environment. BioData Catalyst democratizes access
to HLBS data by making it FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). Mr. Thomson advises
scientific staff on data science and information technology in support of NHLBI’s data centric programs
including the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed), Cure Sickle Cell Initiative, HeartShare and
Maternal Morbidity and Mortality programs. He provides technical and cybersecurity leadership and
oversight for several trans-NIH initiatives such as the Post-Acute Sequelae of SAR-CoV-2/COVID (PASC)
RECOVER program and the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability program. Prior to joining the NHLBI, Mr.
Thomson had an eclectic career in industries including government, healthcare, telecommunications,
insurance, logistics, broadcast television and computer animation. He established and led the Computer
Science Applied Research Center at New Zealand’s University of Otago and holds degrees in Psychology
and Computer Science. He has interests in expanding diversity within HLBS data sets and the HLBS
research community and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to
discovery science.