Last update: March 2026
This is part of the ZAPP Governance Documents.
These Governance Documents establish the structure, principles, and processes that guide the Zebrafish Toxicology Phenotype Atlas Project (ZAPP). They define the rules, expectations, and responsibilities necessary to support the long-term success, transparency, and sustainability of the project.
These documents address:
ZAPP is a project funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). ZAPP’s mission is to build a community-driven zebrafish toxicophenotype Atlas supported by standardized data models, ontologies, and annotation tools. These Governance Documents have been developed to support this mission and to meet funder expectations, including commitments to:
Together, these policies provide a foundation for responsible stewardship of the ZAPP infrastructure and community.
This section defines the governance structure, decision-making authority, and roles within ZAPP.
Sabrina Toro, Ph.D., (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ORCID: 0000-0002-4142-7153) and Alexa Burger, Ph.D., (University of Colorado Anschutz, ORCID: 0000-0001-7137-3910) serve as Multiple Principal Investigators (MPI) for ZAPP.
Responsibilities of the MPIs:
Decision Authority Reserved for the MPIs:
The MPIs retain final decision authority for:
These decisions are informed by recommendations from the Advisory Group, Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), maintainers, working groups, and the broader community.
Role
The Project Manager (PM) works closely with the MPIs and serves as a bridge between leadership and the ZAPP maintainers. The PM helps ensure that the project runs smoothly by keeping communication open and consistent across all levels of the project. The PM is responsible for choosing the appropriate project management strategy and collaborating with ZAPP maintainers to ensure consistent workflows and tracking. In certain scenarios, the PM may be given decision-making authority by the MPIs.
Responsibilities:
Members: Anne Thessen, Melissa Haendel, Jonathan Hamm
Role
The Internal Advisory Team provides frequent guidance to ZAPP leadership by contributing domain expertise, institutional knowledge, and familiarity with the toxicology data ecosystem and community-driven projects.
Responsibilities:
Purpose: The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is an independent body of experts designed to serve in an advisory capacity to ZAPP team about the status and direction of ZAPP. Members will be selected for their research, programmatic, and/or technology expertise with a focus on inclusive excellence. The SAB will provide strategic observations and feedback on existing and proposed activities and partnerships, including prioritization of new development, external funding opportunities, operational issues, and long-term planning.
Membership: The SAB will comprise 6-8 members with expertise relevant to the ZAPP mission, including, but not limited to: computer science, data curation, data structuring/modeling, toxicology, imaging, community outreach, zebrafish, training, and user experience design. Potential members might represent a variety of career stages or have experience working with NIH and other institutions. The ZAPP MPIs and Internal Advisory team will nominate experts for SAB membership. Nominations will be proposed every two years. Candidates will reflect the diversity of the zebrafish toxicology ecosystem. Determining whether someone is qualified for membership on the SAB is not static, and is commensurate with the pressing needs and strategic objectives at the given time as decided by the MPIs with advice from the Internal Advisory Members.
Duties and operations: The SAB will serve in an advisory role, providing observations and feedback to the ZAPP Leadership team. The SAB will meet or connect with members of the ZAPP team once per year, with ad hoc meetings as needed. Jonathan Hamm (internal advisory team) will serve as the chair and facilitator for SAB meetings. Additional meetings may be scheduled throughout the year to facilitate discussions between the SAB and ZAPP leadership team on specific topics. Jonathan Hamm will write a summary of their feedback for ZAPP Leadership within one week of the meeting.
Maintainers are project team members responsible for the technical and operational functioning of ZAPP resources, including developers, curators, and infrastructure contributors.
Responsibilities:
Maintainers operate under the direction of the MPIs and PM.
Working groups are formed to address specific project needs or deliverables.
Examples include:
Membership
Community members may express interest in participating in working groups. Working group members are selected by ZAPP MPIs and maintainers based on the expertise required for the group’s goals.
Working Group Leads
Each working group will have one or more leads from the ZAPP Maintainers responsible for:
PM support for working group leads is available for working groups as needed.
Lifecycle
The working groups:
Contributors are individuals who actively contribute to ZAPP through:
Responsibilities:
Community members include all users, stakeholders, and researchers who engage with ZAPP resources.
Community members help shape ZAPP through:
Community members are expected to:
ZAPP is committed to transparent, inclusive, and well-documented decision-making.
All formal decisions made by the ZAPP Leadership Team are documented in:
Discussions related to technical changes, standards, governance updates, and policy decisions are conducted as openly as possible.
Community members may participate in the decision-making process by:
Participation is encouraged, and feedback is considered as part of the deliberation process.
The ZAPP Leadership Team follows a consensus-seeking model, meaning:
Consensus-seeking does not require unanimity.
While community participation is welcomed and valued, final decision-making authority rests with the ZAPP MPIs.
Decisions are made in alignment with:
The MPIs retain responsibility for ensuring that decisions support the long-term health and integrity of the project.
These Governance Documents may be amended through the following process: