Reproducible research objects
Packaging workflows, software environments, containers, notebooks, data, provenance, and publications so computational research can be inspected and rerun.
The Molik Lab
Infrastructure is part of the scientific method.
We study and build the connective tissue of research: the data systems, workflows, identifiers, standards, and publishing practices that let knowledge travel.
Who we are
A networked lab for networked problems.
The Molik Lab is a collaborative research group at Kansas State University working across scholarly communication, research computing, data stewardship, and the life sciences.
We are intentionally organized around projects and partnerships rather than disciplinary walls. A repository problem may also be a metadata problem, a workflow problem, a governance problem, and a training problem. We bring those pieces together.
The lab is led by David C. Molik, associate professor and department head of the Open Publishing Exchange at K-State Libraries. Its work draws on collaborations with researchers, students, librarians, software engineers, publishers, research-computing teams, and national data communities.
Research directions
From research objects to research ecosystems.
Our work focuses on four connected areas where better infrastructure can change what research communities are able to do.
FAIR and AI-ready data
Designing metadata, identifiers, relationships, and curation practices that support responsible reuse by both researchers and computational systems.
Agricultural and biodiversity informatics
Improving discovery, standards, and long-term stewardship for genomic, genetic, breeding, and biodiversity data through community infrastructure.
Cyberbiosecurity and research integrity
Understanding how data provenance, access, system design, and publication practices affect trust, security, and resilience in the life sciences.
How we work
Build, document, teach, hand off.
The goal is not merely to make a prototype. It is to leave behind infrastructure and practice that a community can understand, govern, and sustain.
Start with the workflow
We observe how research actually moves—from collection and computation through review, publication, preservation, and reuse.
Design for relationships
We connect people, data, software, instruments, grants, publications, and institutions through meaningful metadata and identifiers.
Plan for transfer
Documentation, training, governance, accessibility, and maintenance are treated as research deliverables—not cleanup work.
People and partnerships
The roster follows the question.
The lab currently operates through a distributed network of collaborators rather than a fixed list of permanent members.
Projects may bring together participants from K-State Libraries, research computing, computer science, agriculture, biosecurity, publishers, repositories, and national scientific-data communities. This structure reflects the work: infrastructure problems rarely belong to only one department.
I welcome conversations with undergraduate and graduate researchers, faculty, librarians, developers, community infrastructure projects, and external partners.
Discuss a collaboration
Work with the lab
Bring the complicated infrastructure problem.
Good fits include collaborative research, student supervision, research-data and metadata strategy, repository or publishing infrastructure, reproducible workflows, standards development, training, and advisory work.