Sadly, our dear colleague, Dr. David Belanger, passed away in November last year. David was a founding member of the New Jersey Big Data Alliance (NJBDA)—an alliance of New Jersey academic institutions and corporations that aims to promote Big Data education and research in New Jersey, the parent organization of this journal. “Through the last decade, as our organization grew and expanded its programs, he provided brilliant insight and guidance on our direction, offering suggestions in his thoughtful way and always ready to collaborate. David will be greatly missed,” said Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, NJBDA’s past president and co-founder. At NJBDA, he was most recently Vice President of the Entrepreneurship Committee. David was an internationally known authority on Big Data and data governance. We at NJBDA and JBDAI will continue to remember David as a gentle scholar who cared for people. A colleague fittingly remembered David as being “the kindest scientist of our time.”