Eunice Mercado-Lara

Project focus: In collaboration with the Health Research Alliance, Eunice will work toward increasing both openness and equity within funding programs by helping to develop, launch, and oversee an Open and Equitable Model Funding Program to address inequities in the research community.

About Eunice
Eunice Mercado-Lara, born and raised in a small city in Mexico, strongly believes open and collaborative environments are the most effective way to solve complex problems. Over the last decade, she has been a passionate advocate about openness regarding government, data, and science. The questions that keep her awake at night are: What are the variables for openness success? What leads institutions and individuals into openness and collaboration? Eunice is the Civic Science Fellow at the Open Research Funders Group. She is the project lead for the Open & Equitable Model Funding Program that advises philanthropies to optimize their funding models to increase openness and equity in research making. She has more than eight years of experience in the public sector in science and technology policymaking. More recently, she has served as an advisor for startups on the responsible use and implementation of new technologies and their regulations. She is former Project Manager for the AI Training Programs at Montreal NewTech, and Deputy Director for Science and Technology Policy at the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico. She has collaborated as a researcher within the Center for Technology in Government at SUNY Albany, the AidData Research Lab at William & Mary, and the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico. Eunice served as a board and committee member in several international organizations and initiatives advocating for openness, such as CERN’s SCOAP3 initiative, the Open Access Week, and OpenCon LATAM. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from McGill University and a B.A. from El Colegio de San Luis.