Remembering Darrell

On Saturday, April 27, 2019, IASSIST and the broader data professional’s community lost a valued colleague and friend, Darrell Donakowski. The IASSIST organization mourns his untimely death and wishes to recognize the significant contributions he made to the data community over the course of his career.

Friends and family have created a scholarship at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in his memory.  At the suggestion of the several members and with the approval of the Administrative Committee, IASSIST has contributed $1000 to the scholarship to recognize the numerous contributions Darrell made to the data community right up to the time of his premature passing.

Darrell worked as a project manager in the Collection Development Unit at ICPSR and later served as the Director of Studies of the American National Election Studies (ANES). He was strongly engaged with IASSIST and with a broader data community through ICPSR and ANES.  He greatly enriched those organizations by bringing together data professionals and archives through efforts such as Data-PASS.

Darrell made prominent scholarly contributions to IASSIST through multiple publications, web postings and presentations.  He was a long-time active member who regularly attended and readily participated in the annual conference. In addition, Darrell was an enthusiastic and dedicated volunteer in the Dearborn, Michigan political community, and was generally known as a kind-hearted and generous soul. 

The IASSIST community hopes that the scholarship will help remember Darrell’s contributions and help encourage others to follow his example.  He will be greatly missed.