Research Development and Support
How the Grants Team Promotes Research
- Advises faculty on research development.
- Identifies funding and scholarly award opportunities.
- Develops research and scholarship escalators.
- Provides pre-award support for proposal writing, supporting documents, and budgeting.
- Provides post-award support for project accounting, effort certification, reports, and closing.
- Coordinates with RU’s offices for compliance with research and financial requirements.
- Coordinates with SC&I’s Strategic Communication and Information Technology functions
Research Development Team
Mark Aakhus
Associate Dean of Research at SC&I
- Member of the SC&I dean’s leadership team with responsibility for research strategy and administration related to the school’s diverse scholarship that ranges across humanities, social sciences, and information sciences.
- Responsibilities related to research and scholarship include visibility, funding, mentoring, impact, knowledge transfer, compliance, internationalization, graduate education, tenure and promotion, and integration.
- Member of the RU-NB’s Research Deans Planning Group convened by the Vice Provost for Research.
- Directs SC&I’s Research Development and Grants Team and coordinates with leads of the school’s Business, IT, Development, and Marketing & Communications units.
- Convenes and organizes SC&I’s Research Development Committee that provides input on school-wide initiatives, administration of development funding, and buildout of programs to enhance research culture.
- Coordinates with leads of SC&I’s research entities (centers, labs, working groups, clusters) and initiatives.
Narda Acevedo
- Guides faculty and grant facilitators in the creation of budgets for grant proposals.
- Ensures that the budgets meet University, SSW, and sponsor expectations on the types of costs proposed and SSW’s ability to monitor and account for costs proposed in the event of funding.
- Oversees business office staff in monitoring grant budgets and in complying with University, SSW, and sponsor policies on the expenditure of grant funds.
- Establishes that appropriate expenditures are recorded in a timely manner and that principal investigators are advised of the progression of expenditures as grant work is undertaken.
- Makes certain that University and sponsor grant-closing procedures are followed.
Zachary Bohn
- Project set-ups; sub-award documentation and invoicing tracking; the processing of budget modifications and no-cost extensions; interactions with Grants and Contract Accounting (GCA) as to allowable charges; compliance.
- Tracks due dates and project spending.
- Account reconciliation; cost-share calculation and processing; course buy-outs; salary transfer; tuition remission/misc.; reallocation expenditures; close-out projections; and close-outs.
Blain Bradley
Assistant Dean
Development
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Coordinates with Associate Dean for Research and grants team to identify funding opportunities and initiatives.
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Collaborates with faculty, academic departments, and administrators to align funding efforts with school priorities.
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Acts as the liaison between the Rutgers Foundation and SC&I.
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Facilitates internal university communications that foster awareness of SC&I’s sponsored research funding goals.
Chandu Dondeti
Assistant Dean
Information Technology
- Coordinates with Associate Dean for Research on planning IT, computing/cloud applications, and information services for SC&I’s research community.
- Collaborates with faculty and Associate Dean for Research in the ongoing development of SC&I’s research workbench.
- Supports scholarly communications in concert with the Director of Marketing and Communications and the Associate Dean for Research.
- Responsible for network design and management of 400-plus devices and associated peripheral network.
- Manages the full-time IT staff and 12-person helpdesk, web developer, and system administration staff.
Shazia Sheikh
- Project set-ups; sub-award documentation and invoicing tracking; the processing of budget modifications and no-cost extensions; interactions with Grants and Contract Accounting (GCA) as to allowable charges; compliance.
- Tracks due dates and project spending.
- Account reconciliation; cost-share calculation and processing; course buy-outs; salary transfer; tuition remission/misc.; reallocation expenditures; close-out projections; and close-outs.
Brenda Sheridan
Director of Marketing and Communications
- Directs and manages the communications, public relations, marketing, website, and social media campaigns at SC&I to increase research, enrollment, and teaching reputation.
- Seeks to achieve these goals by employing an analysis of benchmarks, metrics and analytics while working with a team of professional communicators and interns.
- Collaborates with deans, department chairs, program directors, faculty, and staff to identify audiences for educational programs and products.
- Works closely with the development team to produce supporting materials and messages to cultivate alumni and donors.
Craig Winston
Grants Writer-Editor
- Searches and disseminates funding opportunities.
- Assists in writing/editing narrative & summaries; aligning narratives with RFPs.
- Helps promote and communicate scholarship through faculty pages, in mainstream media, through scholarly awards, and social media presence.
- Assists faculty in preparing documents (narratives or similar) to accompany post-award submissions.