Dr. Benjamin Callahan is a winner for the 2025 The OpenSource@Stanford Community Prize for his DADA2 (Divisive Amplicon Denoising Algorithm). DADA2 is an open source R package for characterizing microbial communities, with applications for understanding the microbiome and human health. It has spawned many downstream projects: 25,000+ paper citations, 735 verified software packages, and 26 patent citations. The Prize is an annual award presented by Stanford University’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO) to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to open source software within the university’s research community. Established to promote open source as a vital component of scholarly work, the prize honors those who exemplify best practices in open source development, including transparency, reproducibility, and community engagement. Winners receive a cash award, official recognition on their ORCID records, and acknowledgment at the Stanford Data Science Center for Open and REproducible Science (CORES) Symposium.

Impact

DADA2 has become one of the most widely used tools for high-resolution microbial community analysis, enabling researchers to accurately identify and quantify microbial species from sequencing data. Its ability to correct sequencing errors and distinguish real biological variation has significantly improved reproducibility and reliability in microbiome research across environmental, clinical, and biomedical studies worldwide.