Adam Thomas, Ph.D.
Director
Data Science and Sharing Team
Research Topics
The Data Science and Sharing Team supports investigators in the NIMH Intramural Research Program in creating, distributing, and using large open datasets to accelerate discovery. The team provides tools and training to help IRP scientists adopt open and reproducible research practices. This includes community-standard formats and repositories for data storage and dissemination, collaborative version-controlled tools for developing analysis code, and open distribution of experimental methods and results to maximize impact and reproducibility.
Biography
Adam Thomas leads the Data Science and Sharing Team (DSST) in the National Institute of Mental Health's Intramural Research Program, a group he founded in 2016 to help IRP scientists create, share, and reuse large open datasets. The team curates and distributes petabytes of open neuroscience data — including the NIMH Intramural Healthy Volunteer Dataset — and contributes to community data standards such as the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) and NeuroData Without Borders. Adam is a co-investigator on the BRAIN Initiative grant that established the OpenNeuroPET repository, and he led the committee that implemented the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy across the NIMH IRP. Since March 2026, he has also served as acting Chief Information Officer of NIMH. He has previously served on details with the NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis and the NIMH Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science (DNBBS). In 2024 was Open Scientist in Residence at the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute at The Neuro (McGill University). Adam holds a D.Phil. in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford and degrees in computer science and neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh.
Selected Publications
A very simple, re-executable neuroimaging publication . Ghosh SS, Poline JB, Keator DB, Halchenko YO, Thomas AG, Kessler DA, Kennedy DN.. F1000Res. 2017 Feb 10 [revised 2017 Jun 15];6:124. PMID: 28781753.
7 T MRI reveals hippocampal structural abnormalities associated with memory intrusions in childhood-onset schizophrenia . Zhou D, Liu S, Zhou X, Berman R, Broadnax D, Gochman P, Rapoport J, Thomas A. Schizophr Res. 2018 Dec;202:431-432. PMID: 30029830.
Multi-modal characterization of rapid anterior hippocampal volume increase associated with aerobic exercise . Thomas AG, Dennis A, Rawlings NB, Stagg CJ, Matthews L, Morris M, Kolind SH, Foxley S, Jenkinson M, Nichols TE, Dawes H, Bandettini PA, Johansen-Berg H. Neuroimage. 2016 May 1;131:162-70. PMID: 26654786.
Human structural plasticity at record speed . Johansen-Berg H, Baptista CS, Thomas AG. Neuron. 2012 Mar 22;73(6):1058-60. PMID: 22445333.
Functional but not structural changes associated with learning: an exploration of longitudinal voxel-based morphometry (VBM) . Thomas AG, Marrett S, Saad ZS, Ruff DA, Martin A, Bandettini PA. Neuroimage. 2009 Oct 15;48(1):117-25. PMID: 19520171.
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