Dr. Ranjini Ambalavanar is a Scientist-Investigator in the Division of Investigative Oversight (DIO), Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Dr. Ambalavanar conducts oversight review of cases of Research misconduct in Public Health Service (PHS)-funded research at US institutions. ORI promotes integrity in biomedical research supported by the PHS and oversees investigations of research misconduct cases

Prior to joining the ORI in May 2009, Dr. Ambalavanar was a faculty member at the University of Maryland Dental School (UMD). Dr. Ambalavanar received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Liverpool, UK, her postdoctoral training at Cambridge University, UK and NINDS, NIH, (Bethesda, MD, USA). Dr. Ambalavanar was interested in the mechanisms of chronic cutaneous and deep tissue pain involving muscle and joint. She explored the neural mechanisms of chronic craniofacial pain disorders and provided creative directions in science by her unique contributions to the field. She has published many peer reviewed articles and invited book chapters in her field of research.

Office of Research Integrity, HHS

Dr. Sally Amero serves as the NIH Review Policy Officer (RPO) and Extramural Research Integrity Liaison Officer (ERILO) in the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). As RPO, she advises the Deputy Director for Extramural Research on peer review policy, develops review policy, and facilitates its implementation across the agency. As ERILO, she handles violations of peer review integrity. Before joining OER, she served as the Scientific Review Officer for the genome study section and subsequently as the inaugural Chief of the Bioengineering Sciences and Technology Integrated Review Group in the Center for Scientific Review. Before joining the NIH, Dr. Amero was an assistant professor at Loyola University Medical Center, where her research focused on chromosome structure and RNA processing. Dr. Amero earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology and Biochemical Genetics from West Virginia University, and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Virginia and Washington University.

Dr. Stacey Arnold is a Subject Matter Expert for the Results Quality Control Team, ClinicalTrials.gov, at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. She is a contractor with ICF and first joined ClinicalTrials.gov in 2011 as a Results Reviewer. In her current role, she partigoppcipates in the development of educational materials and trainings intended to facilitate the successful completion of results submissions. Prior to joining ClinicalTrials.gov, she received her PhD in Biological Chemistry from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and conducted post-doctoral research at the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

National Library of Medicine (NLM), NIH

Ms. Anderson serves as a Senior Advisor for Public Health Education in the Division of Education and Development of the HHS Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).
Prior to joining OHRP, Ms. Anderson was a Senior Policy and Research Analyst at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, where she served as staff lead for the Bioethics Commission’s educational materials and for both volumes of the Bioethics Commission’s Gray Matters report on neuroscience and ethics. She holds an M.S. in Biomedical Science Policy and Advocacy from Georgetown University, an M.A. in Science Education from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in Microbiology from Clemson University.

Dr. Jade Blevins is the Customer Relationship Manager and Product Owner for several grants administration services and eRA projects including, Request for Additional Materials (RAM), Certificate of Confidentiality, Federal Financial Report transition to use of the Payment Management System and Partner Agency functionalities within the National Institutes of Health’s division of electronic Research Administration (eRA). Jade began her career with OER as a Scientific Information Analyst in the Division of Categorization and Analysis. She moved to eRA as a product owner for the Research Condition and Disease Categorization team and from there was reassigned to the Human Subjects System and now the Commons team where she is a liaison between end users and development teams defining and implementing system requirements. Jade is an alumna of the University of Maryland Baltimore where she holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Ericka Boone, Ph.D. is the Director of the NIH Division of Loan Repayment. In this role, Dr. Boone is responsible for administering and providing leadership for the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRP) as well as representing NIH on matters related to the operations, policy development and evaluation of the LRP. Previous to this position, Dr. Boone served as a Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of Science Policy and Communications at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There she developed and targeted science-based publications, outreach initiatives and other activities to educate a variety of audiences about the science of drug use, abuse and addiction. For her role in these efforts, Dr. Boone has won several NIDA Director’s Awards of Merit and an NIH Director’s Award. Prior to coming to NIH, Dr. Boone conducted research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Emory University. Dr. Boone’s academic background includes a B.A. in Biology from Talladega College and a Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health from The Pennsylvania State University.

Ms. Rosalina Bray is the NIH Extramural Staff Training Officer and leads the activities of for Extramural Staff Training Programs. Prior to accepting a position in the NIH Office of the Director, she was a Senior Health Science Policy Analyst for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development; and a Program Analyst for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. She serves on several trans-Agency and trans-NIH committees and working groups. Bray has led several national and global collaborative efforts. She has a passion for leadership development and transforming organizations.

At the NIH, she co-chairs the OD Staff Training Advisory Committee (STAC). While serving as the NIH Extramural Staff Training Officer, Ms. Bray led efforts to design the NIH Training 365 Programmatic Framework; redesigned the NIH Integrated Core Curriculum for extramural staff; established partnerships and collaborations with NIH Training Partners award the agency; and improved the coordination of training activities within the Office of Extramural Research. Ms. Bray is considered one of the nation’s foremost thought leaders in executive leadership, science policy, technological innovation, business development, and education reform. In addition, she is a leading voice for diversity and inclusion, capacity building, pipeline development, and workforce development.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Michelle G. Bulls is the Director of the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) with policy and compliance oversight for the 24 Institutes and Centers grants management offices within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Michelle provides national leadership and oversight in the business and financial management of the federal assistance biomedical research programs supported by NIH. Michelle has over 20 years of grants administration experience and is well respected Federal-wide for her grants policy expertise. She continues to lead HHS and Federal-wide efforts in drafting and implementing financial assistance regulations and policies. She currently serves on the Council of Financial Assistance Reform working group where she champions grants management streamlining and reformation efforts across the Federal government.

Dr. Danielle Carlin has been a Program Administrator (i.e., Health Scientist Administrator) for approximately 9 years with the Superfund Research Program (SRP) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, NC. Her position consists of providing guidance and advice to grantees and applicants applying for P42 Center and R01 grants, writing Requests for Applications, developing and hosting scientific workshops, and serving as the lead liaison between SRP trainees and the various training opportunities offered by SRP. She also has grant portfolios in the areas of environmental chemical mixtures, xenobiotic metabolism, and inhalation toxicology.

Prior to her position, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher for four years at the University of North Carolina (UNC): two years within the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, studying aerosolized drugs/vaccines for treatment and prevention of tuberculosis; and two years within the Curriculum in Toxicology conducting her research at the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), Cardiopulmonary and Immunotoxicology Branch, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina where she studied the toxicological effects of exposure to Libby amphibole asbestos in the rat model. Her areas of expertise include cardiopulmonary/reproductive physiology and inhalation toxicology/pharmacology. She has served in leadership roles such as President and Councilor of the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of Toxicology (NCSOT) and is currently Vice-President of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) Environmental Chemical Mixtures Specialty Section. She is also a member of the American Physiological Society.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH

Laverne Morrow Carter is an intervention researcher, teacher, leader and social entrepreneur dedicated to focused set of activities that range from program evaluation to creating and testing digital media interventions for adolescents and professionals. During her 40 years in business, she has employed a collection of innovative approaches and theoretically grounded practices to develop solutions to health and social issues in under-resourced communities and has managed more than $38 million dollars in funded projects and contracts.

Dr. Carter is the Founder, President and Chief Project Director of Research, Evaluation and Social Solutions, Inc. (REESSI), a premier private research firm that is based in Virginia, REESSI’s mission is to investigate, design, build, evaluate and diffuse pragmatic digital learning and communication solutions that lead to cumulative and sustained health in under-resourced populations. Dr. Carter has secured and managed multiple Phase I and Phase II SBIR projects that focus on digital learning and communication solutions. She has more than seven years of experience as reviewer and panel chair for SBIR peer reviews.

In 1976, Dr. Carter received a Bachelor of Science degree with dual a major in Psychology and Communications from Illinois State University. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Master of Arts degree in Education (Counseling) in 1977. She received a Master of Public Health degree with a comprehensive concentration in Health Behavior and Health Education in 2001 from St. Louis University. Dr. Carter completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Policy Analysis and Administration with a concentration in Health Policy Evaluation and Research at St. Louis University in 2005.

Research, Evaluation and Social Solutions, Inc. (REESSI)

Dr. Faye Chen is the program director for the Clinical, Integrative Physiology and Rare Diseases of Bone Program at the Division of Extramural Research of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Prior to this, she served as program director for the Basic Bone Biology Program and the Bone Diseases Program. Her portfolios include grants and applications spanning basic, translational and clinical studies including clinical trials.

Before joining the extramural program as a Program Director in 2009, Faye was a staff scientist at the NIAMS intramural research program at the Cartilage Biology and Orthopedics Branch. Before arriving at NIH, she was a tenure tracked assistant professor and head of Biochemistry Section at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of Columbia University. She was trained as a postdoc at BIDMC and obtained her Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests prior to the extramural program related to the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms governing mesenchymal stem cell biology, with a focus on the roles of extracellular matrix and epigenetic modification and intracellular signaling, adult stem cell differentiation into cartilage and bone, and their application to tissue engineering and orthopedic medicine.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), NIH

Mr. Bryan S. Clark leads the Grants Management Branch (GMB) of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), serving as the Chief Grants Management Officer (CGMO). Prior to his current position, Mr. Clark served as Chief GMO at the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Prior to that, he held various positions in Grants Management since 1989, including the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Mr. Clark received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland in 1988 and his Master of Business Administration degree from Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland in 1996. Mr. Clark received the NIH Merit Award in 1998, 2009, 2012 and 2015-2017 for various activities including successful management of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds and most recently for his efforts on the Zika Rapid Response Committee. In addition, Mr. Clark has served as the GMAC Vision Chair and also served as the Chair of the NIH Staff Training in Extramural Programs (STEP) Committee.

As Communications Director, Ms. Megan Columbus is responsible for leading strategic planning and communication activities pertinent to the management of NIH’s extramural program. She enjoys connecting scientists and administrators to information and tools in support of their research programs, helping the broader public learn how NIH-supported research contributes to health advances, and supporting the ongoing dialog between NIH and the research community. Ms. Columbus’ office is responsible for the NIH Grants and Funding website, the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, the Extramural Nexus newsletter and “Open Mike” blog, eRA system communications, the Grants Info service desk, and a host of other resources. She especially enjoys her outreach responsibilities, which includes putting on events like the NIH Regional Seminars. As Program Manager for Electronic Applications, Ms. Columbus is responsible for ensuring that policy changes, technical development and business process changes move forward together to allow for the smooth submission of grant applications.

Dr. Cathleen Cooper is the Director, Division of Receipt and Referral (DRR) at the Center for Scientific Review. She came to this position after serving as Chief of the Oncology 1: Basic Translational Integrated Review Group for several years. Earlier in her NIH career, she spent eight years as a Scientific Review Officer for CSR’s Experimental Immunology and Transplantation, Tolerance, and Tumor Immunology study sections as well as a Referral Officer in DRR. Dr. Cooper earned a Ph.D. in pathology at the University of Southern California where she studied naturally occurring delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions to mycobacteria. She did her postdoctoral training in molecular immunology at Columbia University then went to the University of Massachusetts Medical School as an assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology and the Cancer Center. There, she led a research team studying the molecular regulation of early events in hematopoietic development with special emphasis on B lymphocyte and neutrophil differentiation. Her work was funded by NIH, American Cancer Society, and private foundations.

Scott Cooper is an Assistant Extramural Inventions Policy Officer in the Division of Extramural Inventions and Technology Resources (DEITR) in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research. DEITR works under the auspices of OPERA to develop, implement, and monitor extramural intellectual property policies and invention reporting under the Bayh-Dole Act. The Division also promotes the proper utilization of NIH-funded patents and inventions in extramural programs, as well as facilitates the distribution and sharing of research resources.

Mr. Cooper has more than 21 years of federal service in the areas of Grants Management & Policy and Aviation Security Policy with the Division of Grants Policy, Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research; the HHS’ Office of Grants Policy Oversight and Evaluation; the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at DHS. Prior to joining Federal service, he served as a staff attorney for a small non-profit organization that served the Criminal Justice community. Mr. Cooper earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Albany, and his Juris Doctor degree from the Albany Law School of Union University.

Ms. Dawn Corbett is the NIH Inclusion Policy Officer in the Office of Extramural Research’s Office (OER), where she provides oversight of trans-NIH efforts to ensure the inclusion of women, minorities, and individuals across the lifespan in NIH-defined clinical research. Prior to joining OER, Ms. Corbett led efforts to increase the efficiency and transparency of clinical research through enhanced recruitment monitoring and increased compliance efforts as a Health Science Policy Analyst in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Office of Clinical Research, Clinical Trials Operations and Biostatistics Branch. Ms. Corbett began her federal career at NIH in the NIMH Office for Research on Disparities in Global Mental Health (formerly Office for Special Populations), where she coordinated programs related to diversity in clinical research, and designed and conducted portfolio analyses in the areas of global mental health and mental health disparities. Ms. Corbett has a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sheri Cummins joined NIH in 2008 as a Customer Relationship Manager for the electronic Research Administration (eRA) program focusing on eRA’s external services including eRA Commons and Electronic Application Submission. While working in eRA, she led many projects including the implementation of NIH's web-based ASSIST system for grant application preparation and submission. In 2013, she moved to the Division of Communications and Outreach for the NIH Office of Extramural Research where she is responsible for grants process communications and outreach. Prior to coming to NIH, she worked for GE Global Exchange Services for 13 years in various roles including people and project management, communications, customer support and client advocacy. She was also the owner/operator of a small retail business. Ms. Cummins is an alumna of the University of Maryland, where she received a B.S. in Computer Science.

Cindy Danielson is a Health Science Policy Analyst in the Division of Data Systems and Data Quality, which is part of the Office of Extramural Research (OER) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cindy supports the development of reporting tools and databases used for program management and analysis by NIH staff and members of the public, including NIH RePORT and RePORTER. She first joined NIH in 2013 as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Office of Science Policy and Legislation, where she analyzed and reported on NINR’s portfolio of research. She received her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Northwestern University, where she focused on the cell biology of HIV and host cell defenses, and her undergraduate degree in psychobiology from the University of Southern California.

Office of Extramural Research, NIH

Diane Dean is Director of the Division of Grants Compliance and Oversight (DGCO) in the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA), a component of the Office of Extramural Research at the NIH. She joined OPERA in 1998 and became the first director of DGCO in January 2002. The DGCO provides a focal point for the NIH extramural research program to promote compliance and enhance compliance oversight by recipient institutions. Diane’s extensive career at NIH encompasses over 25 years of compliance experience in extramural research, including 16 years reviewing allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse, the basis for her keen interest in compliance

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Ms. Mary Fran Deutsch is a Grants Management Specialist in the Division of Extramural Inventions & Technology Resources (DEITR) in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research.
She has a range of federal grants experience including:

• working with Department of Education (DoEd) State grantees
• serving as a Program Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS) on the agency’s largest discretionary grant program, and
• serving as a Grants Compliance Officer within the NIH.

While at CMS, she received the Administrator's Achievement Award and the DHHS Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service, as part of a large inter-agency coordinating team for the New Freedom Initiative. She earned her J.D. from Creighton University School of Law, and her B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in History and Political Science from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ms. Deutsch has also served as a judicial law clerk to both a state Supreme Court Justice and to a Federal Bankruptcy Judge. Before moving to the Washington D.C. area she was an attorney in private practice for several years.

Dr. Kelly Drew, Chief Executive Officer of Be Cool Pharmaceutics, promotes the science of hibernation, economic growth and world health through discovery and commercialization of hibernation-based therapies. Dr. Drew studied neuropharmacology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and at the Karolinska Institute before returning to Alaska in 1990 where she is now Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and directs a new NIH funded center in hibernation science. Passionate about the neurochemistry of consciousness and brain energy metabolism Dr. Drew fell in love with hibernation. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Drew’s research group discovered a mechanism necessary and sufficient to drive the onset of hibernation. She founded Be Cool Pharmaceutics LLC in 2015 to commercialize therapeutics for neurocritical care after cardiac arrest, and post-operative shivering. She consults with the space flight industry on human hibernation for long-term space travel. In her free time Dr. Drew advocates for the neurologically disabled.

Ms. Cynthia Dwyer serves as a coordinator of the NIH Regional Seminars on Program Funding and Grants Administration for the Office of Extramural Research’s Division of Communications and Outreach. In addition, she is responsible for coordinating other OER outreach activities and the development of resources for the extramural research community.
Ms. Dwyer began her career with NIH in 2000 as a Grants Management Specialist for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where she served for five years. In 2005, she moved to the NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) where she served as a Grants Policy Officer prior to joining OER’s communications office. Ms. Dwyer obtained her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Texas, her teaching degree from University of Missouri-St Louis, and Master of Arts in School Administration from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO. Prior to her career with the NIH, Ms. Dwyer taught grade school, wrote grants for her school district, served as a regional customer service trainer and manager for a major retail chain, and published a travel magazine of Central Missouri.

Erik Edgerton is the Chief Grants Management Officer of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Prior to his current position, he served as a Team Leader in the Office of Grants Administration at the National Cancer Institute from 2015 to 2018. Erik began his career in Grants Administration in 2004 as a Grants Management Specialist with NIAMS.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), NIH

Ms. Lisa Evans is the NIH Scientific Workforce Diversity Officer, Office of Extramural Research. In this position, she serves as an advisor to senior staff, and develops policy and program recommendations to enhance diversity by expanding the pool of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in the NIH funded research portfolio. Prior to coming to the NIH, Ms. Evans served as the External Compliance Manager for the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and as the lead Senior Civil Rights Analyst on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In both positions, she supervised grantee compliance activities for consistency with agency regulations and prevailing civil rights law.

Ms. Evans received her B.A. in Political Science and Black Studies from Amherst College, and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Charles Evans Hughes Fellow and an Earl Warren Legal Scholar. After graduating from law school, she served as a Pro Se Law Clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. Ms. Evans entered Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), through the highly competitive Attorney General's Honors Program in 1994. She was a litigator in the Educational Opportunities Litigation Section for six years, where she formulated litigation and enforcement strategies, appeared before district court judges, and negotiated settlement agreements in school desegregation, gender discrimination, and linguistic access cases. Ms. Evans brought the first linguistic access case in the Civil Rights Division and worked on the trial team that integrated The Citadel, the formerly all-male military academy in South Carolina. Ms. Evans also represented DOJ on an Executive Branch task force on affirmative action in education and provided advice to sister agencies.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Ms. Stephanie J. Fertig is the new HHS Small Business Program Lead in SEED (Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She currently oversees the Health and Human Services (HHS) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which includes the NIH SBIR and STTR programs. The HHS SBIR and STTR programs are congressionally mandated set-aside programs that provide over $1.2 billion dollars per year to small business concerns. Prior to joining SEED, she managed the SBIR and STTR Programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). During her over 15 years at NIH she has led the development and implementation of multiple programs focused on small businesses and translational research. Ms. Fertig has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with a major in Physics from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Office of Extramural Research (OER)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Shawn Drew Gaillard, Ph.D., is chief of the Developmental and Cellular Processes Branch in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB) , where she administers grants focused on chromosome and nuclear structures, organismal response to environmental stressors, and microbiome, biofilms, and quorum sensing. Immediately prior to this role, she was the research training officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Prior to that, Gaillard was a program officer in the NIGMS Genetics and Developmental Biology Division (predecessor to GMCDB) and in the Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD) Division.

Gaillard received a bachelor's degree in natural sciences with a concentration in chemistry from Spelman College. She conducted predoctoral research training at the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). She earned her Ph.D. in biology from Howard University and conducted predoctoral and postdoctoral research at NIDDK.

Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (GMCDB)

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

Alison Gammie, Ph.D., is director of the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity, which supports the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' (NIGMS) research training, career development and diversity-building activities. Prior to coming to NIGMS, she was a Senior Lecturer at Princeton University, where, in addition to teaching, mentoring and running a research laboratory, she served as an academic advisor, an Associate Member at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and the Director of Diversity Programs & Graduate Recruiting. Honors include Princeton’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Graduate Mentoring Award and the American Society for Microbiology Hinton Award for advancing the research careers of under-represented minorities.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

Kasima Garst is a Systems Policy Analyst in the OER’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) Systems Policy Branch. She represents NIH on systems policy initiatives at the HHS and Federal-wide levels and works with key NIH stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of critical systems, policies, and compliance requirements across the NIH. Prior to joining OPERA in 2019, Mrs. Garst was a Grants Management Officer at the NIH Fogarty International Center and a Grants Management Specialist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Middlebury College and a Master of Forensic Sciences degree in Forensic Molecular Biology from the George Washington University.

Scarlett is currently the Lead Customer Relationship Manager for the eRA External Services Team. This team includes the eRA effort in Commons as well as eSubmission and Business to Business systems. Prior to this position Scarlett managed the eRA Helpdesk during the electronic submission effort timeframe, where trouble calls and emails are received from both internal and external users of eRA systems. She has been with the eRA program for 8 years. Ms. Gibb has been employed with the Federal government in a variety of positions for the past twenty five years. Prior to working on the eRA project she worked at the Center for Scientific Review where she started her career as a grants technical assistant, then moved into the information technology field. She has studied at Montgomery College, UDC and Trinity College in Washington, DC, where she received her bachelor’s degree in business management.

Kenneth Gibbs, Jr., Ph.D. is director of the NIGMS Postdoctoral Research Associate Training (PRAT) Program, and is a program director in the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity, where he manages the Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) program and oversees predoctoral T32 biostatistics grants. He also manages research grants in the areas of stem cell biology and regeneration in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.

Gibbs was previously a program analyst in the Institute’s Office of Program Planning, Analysis, and Evaluation. Before joining NIGMS, he was a cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation. Gibbs earned a B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in immunology from Stanford University.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

Dr. Paula Goodwin is currently the NIH Program Administration Officer in the Office of Extramural Research (OER) which provides leadership and expertise in science program management. Prior to OER, Dr. Goodwin was a Program Official at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she directed a portfolio of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Dr. Goodwin earned her doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and received postdoctoral training at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research has primarily focused on the family and social roles of minority women across the life course and the impact these roles have on their health outcomes. Prior to her federal career, Dr. Goodwin was a professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Neera V. Gopee, D.V.M., Ph.D. is the Director, Division of Policy and Education in the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda Maryland. Dr. Gopee earned her veterinary degree at the University of the West Indies and holds a doctoral degree in Toxicology from the University of Georgia. Prior to her appointment at OLAW, she served as a Veterinary Medical Officer at the National Center for Toxicological Research, US Food and Drug Administration in Jefferson, AR. Dr. Gopee is board certified in toxicology and laboratory animal medicine.

Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW)

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Laura Gray is an Assistant Compliance Officer within the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA). Laura has over 15 years of public health experience working with international and domestic health organizations. She has worked with policy-level officials throughout government on a variety of health initiatives. Laura has been recognized at NIH for her financial and regulatory monitoring of Other Transactions awards for the flagship All of Us research program and for managing a complex and highly sensitive grant portfolio. She holds Master’s Degree in Public Health from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University.

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)

LaKisha Greenwade serves as the NIH Cement Extramural Leadership Institute (CELI) Associate Program Director. She contributed to Forbes.com Leadership column where her business and leadership tips have been featured in the U.S., China, UAE, UK, and Brazil. Prior to working with the NIH, she served as the Department of Health and Human Services Supervisory Training Manager, Department of Defense Management and Employee Relations Program Manager and helped launch the Cross Federal Executive Coaching Program, still in use today. LaKisha is a graduate of The Ohio State University (BS), University of Maryland (MBA), and attended Johns Hopkins University.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Michelle R.J. Hamlet, Ph.D., started working at NIH in 2006 as the first Training Program Coordinator at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). In that capacity she oversaw existing and developed new training programs and opportunities, most notably the NHGRI Health Disparities Research Fellowship and the first NIH Community College Day, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Dr. Hamlet then served as Program Director at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in the Division of Genetics and Developmental Biology where she oversaw basic research and postdoctoral training portfolios in cell cycle regulation and the Division of Training, Workforce Development and Diversity, where she oversaw undergraduate and graduate student programs (Bridges to Baccalaureate and Bridges to Doctorate). Dr. Hamlet currently works at the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) where she serves as a Program Director for Symptom Science and Genetics overseeing a clinical and pre-clinical portfolio focused on symptom biology, symptom assessment/recognition, and symptom clusters. Dr. Hamlet earned a B.S.L.A. in French from Georgetown University, a master’s in zoology at Howard University, and a Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology from Harvard University. Dr. Hamlet conducted postdoctoral research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Anastasiya Hardison is the Customer Relationship Manager and Product Owner for several grants administration services including, Prior Approval, xTrain, and Financial Conflict Of Interest (FCOI), in the National Institutes of Health’s division of electronic Research Administration (eRA). Anastasiya began her career with eRA at the service desk providing support for eRA Commons and eSubmission users. She was quickly promoted to become a liaison between end users and development teams defining and implementing system requirements. Anastasiya is an alumna of Towson University where she holds a Bachelor of Science.

Brian Haugen, Ph.D. is the Director of the Division of Analysis Tools and Systems, Office of Research Information Services, Office of Extramural Research, Office of the NIH Director. He oversees the NIH RePORT, RePORTER, QVR, and iRePORT programs on behalf of NIH. Previously, he was a Senior Scientist for Analysis and Evaluation at the Eunice Kennedy Schriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where he led data management and data analytic projects for the National Children’s Study.

Brian first joined NIH in 2007 as an at-large Presidential Management Fellow, completing rotations across the NIH in information technology, contracts, review, policy, and scientific programs. He received a PhD in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he focused on urinary tract pathogenesis by Escherichia coli, and his undergraduate degree in biology from Bemidji State University in far northern Minnesota.

Mr. Gabriel Hidalgo is the Grants Management Specialist Lead and Deputy Chief of the Grants Management Branch at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). He started his career at NIH as a Lead Program Analyst for the Division of Extramural Activities (DEA) at NIDCR in 2008, where he was in charge of the ongoing evaluation of the division’s activities effectiveness as well as communicating the findings to the Institute’s Executive Staff and conveying strategy plans to the various levels of decision makers within the Institute. In 2013 he transitioned to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) where he served as the Division Coordinator for the Clinical Innovation Program and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA). In March 2015 he moved back to NIDCR where he is now serving as the Team Lead and Deputy Chief of the Grants Management Branch, overseeing grants management operations of a five-staff Grants Management Team, managing NIDCR’s extramural grant portfolio, as well as Common Fund programs under the Office of the Director (OD). He holds a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology and Molecular Biology from George Mason University, as well as an MBA with a concentration in Health Services Administration and Corporate Social Responsibility from the George Washington University School of Business.

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), NIH

Sean Hine is a Supervisory Grants Management Specialist with the National Cancer Institute at NIH. Prior to his current position, Sean worked at NCI as a Grants Management Specialist and a Team Leader. Through 16 years of experience, he has worked with nearly every mechanism that NCI supports. Sean has a degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton where he majored in business management with concentrations in leadership and management information systems.

Dr. Brian Hoshaw received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology/Neuroscience from Temple University in 2002. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Pharmacology. In 2006, he joined the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) at the NIH as part of the Scientific Review Officer (SRO) internship program. In 2012, he joined the National Eye Institute as an SRO where he reviews clinical trial and other applications.
During his time at NIH, Dr. Hoshaw has served on numerous committees and working groups related to SRO training with a focus on IT aspects of the SRO job. Dr. Hoshaw has been involved in the development and use of Internet Assisted Meetings (IAM). He was one of the first users of this review format, and for 3 years he was the IAM Coordinator at the Center for Scientific Review, and for 2 years he was co-Chair of the SRO Technical and Competencies Subcommittee (STCS). Dr. Hoshaw is currently the Acting Chief of the Scientific Review Branch at the National Eye Institute. His review load covers training grants and clinical trial applications, as well as applications submitted to RFAs for NEI.

Dr. David A. Jett is Director of the NIH Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Program, a program supported by a specific Congressional appropriation to the NIH for the development of new drugs and diagnostic tools for treating victims of chemical exposures during an emergency. He also serves as Program Director and Scientific Team Leader within the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). After receiving a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Jett conducted post-doctoral research and subsequently joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health where he conducted research as a university professor for several years.

Dr. Jett's scientific interest is in the impact of chemical agents on nervous system function, including the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cognitive and neural development. Specifically, he has expertise and experience with pesticides and nerve agents. Dr. Jett has authored many scientific articles and book chapters in the area of neurotoxicology and has chaired sessions and given keynote addresses at many national and international scientific meetings. He holds the position of Professor Adjunct of Chronic Disease and Epidemiology within the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Jett has served on White House and intergovernmental committees that set the nation's research priorities, as well as science advisory panels for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense. Dr. Jett's other major interest at NIH is training and programs designed to increase diversity in the neuroscience research workforce.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), NIH

Donna founded Pinnacle in 1995. Pinnacle designs, manufactures, and sells laboratory research equipment to the preclinical neuroscience market. The company has received 15 Phase II SBIR/STTR awards and has delivered commercial products that aid development of new discoveries and treatments as the result of 12 of the awards. Pinnacle sells to over 40 countries and has been recognized with the Tibbetts Award and the 2019 Kansas Governor’s Exporter of the Year award.

Prior to starting Pinnacle, she held positions as Director of Engineering & Research with several small businesses, and she has worked for various federal and state organizations including: the U.S. House of Representatives, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the University of Connecticut. Donna holds a B.S. and M.S. in botany from the University of Rhode Island, and she studied for her Ph.D. in oceanography at the University of Connecticut. Donna serves/has served on the Board of Directors for Kansas Inc., the Lawrence Technology Association, the Kansas University Center for Research Board of Trustees, the EPSCoR Committee for the Kansas Board of Regents, the U.S. Department of Commerce Mid-America District Export Council, and the Kansas International Trade Coordinating Council.

Dr. Michelle D. Jones-London serves as Chief, Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Workforce Diversity (OPEN-WD). In this position, she plays a critical role in guiding the Institute’s diversity efforts and chairs the NINDS Diversity Working Group. Dr. Jones-London joined NINDS as a Program Director in July 2006. Dr. Jones-London earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. She then received postdoctoral training as a research fellow at University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Jones-London came to the NIH in July 2004 as an Emerging Leader Fellow; she performed duties across the Department of Health and Human Services including the Center for Scientific Review, FDA Office of Women's Health Science Program, and the Immediate Office of the Secretary, Intergovernmental/Tribal Affairs Office.

Dr. Jones-London directs the diversity training and workforce development programs at NINDS which include Diversity and Re-Entry Supplements, Predoctoral Fellowships to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (F31), Career Development Awards to Promote Diversity (K22 and K01) and Diversity Research Education Grants (R25) (including the Neuroscience Scholars Program with SfN). She also provides oversight for the Institute’s diversity outreach initiatives at several other national scientific conferences. Her trans-NIH efforts include oversight for the NIH Blueprint ENDURE and DSPAN (F99/K00) programs, the BRAIN Initiative Diversity K99/R00, and former Project Scientist for the NIH National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN). Her research interests have focused on understanding monoaminergic neurotransmitter regulation and mechanisms of behavioral psychopharmacology in animal models of disorders such as ADHD, Tourette Syndrome, and depression.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH

Dr. Shoshana Kahana joined the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce (DBRW) in OER as the Training Policy Program Officer in 2017. Since 2008 Dr. Kahana worked at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) where she was a Health Scientist Administrator and most recently, Acting Deputy Branch Chief. At NIDA, Dr. Kahana managed an extensive grant portfolio including Career Development and Training programs. She has considerable expertise in program planning and evaluation and recent involvement in the NIH Next Generation Researcher Initiative. Dr. Kahana has a leadership role in program and policy aspects of research training and research career development and contribute to the evaluation of NIH policies and programs to grow and sustain the biomedical research workforce.

Pamela Reed Kearney, M.D. is the Director of the Division of Human Subjects Research within the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). Prior to joining OER in February of 2019, she was the Deputy Chair of the Combined Neurosciences (CNS) IRB in the Intramural program for approximately a decade. In this capacity she sat on three, and at times four, duly constituted IRBs - chairing one and serving as the vice chair of the others. She graduated with Distinction from The George Washington School of Medicine and completed an Otolaryngology Residency at the George Washington University. She was a Neurolaryngology Clinical Fellow with National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the Medical Neurology Branch’s Laryngeal and Speech Section (LSS), and later served as the Staff Clinician of the section. She has worked clinically at the George Washington University, Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital and the NIH Clinical Center.

Mr. George Kennedy has nearly 15 years of government contracting experience, serving the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, before joining the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Office of Acquisitions in August 2010. In his current position Mr. Kennedy serves as a Contracting Officer and Branch Chief supporting the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. During his time at NIH, Mr. Kennedy has negotiated, awarded and administered a broad portfolio of contracts, including indefinite delivery, fixed price and cost type contracts. His responsibilities have encompassed awards of both completion and term forms; and have involved for-profit, non-profit, educational, domestic, foreign, and small business entities.

Mr. Kennedy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law. He has received post-graduate training in Federal Procurement Law from the George Washington University School of Law’s Master of Laws program. He is a licensed attorney with the Maryland Court of Appeals, is FAC-C Level III certified, and holds an unlimited Contracting Officer’s warrant at the NIH.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH

Mr. J.P. Kim serves as an SBIR/STTR Program Manager and NIH Extramural Data Sharing Policy Officer in the NIH Office of Extramural Programs (OEP), under the Office of Extramural Research (OER), under the Office of the Director (OD), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). Prior to joining the NIH SBIR/STTR team, J.P. served as Director & Policy Officer of the Division of Extramural Inventions & Technology Resources in OPERA/OER for over 9 years. His responsibilities included working with the extramural community and developing, implementing, and providing policy guidance, oversight, education/training, and day-to-day management on extramural invention reporting, iEdison, and data sharing/management under NIH extramural funding agreements (including under SBIR awards). Prior to joining the extramural program under OER, J.P. worked in the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) under the Office of Intramural Research (OIR). Among his duties at OTT, J.P. served as a Senior Technology Licensing Specialist and Patent Advisor on inventions arising from the NIH intramural research program, negotiating technology licensing agreements that generated over $300 million in royalties for the NIH. He has over 30 years of experience working with patents and other intellectual property matters for businesses, universities, and other organizations. In addition to J.P.’s duties under the NIH SBIR/STTR programs which includes special expertise on SBIR IP issues, J.P. also works on NIH’s extramural data sharing/management policy and implementation matters. J.P. has also worked as a researcher at private companies and in the academic sector, as well as at national, international, and local intellectual property law firms working on patent, trademark, copyright, and international trade matters. J.P. received his J.D. and M.B.A. in International Business and International Marketing, an M.Sc. in Biotechnology, an M.P.P. in Health Policy with an additional certification in the Nonprofit Sector, and an M.A. in Liberal Studies with a thesis on the bioethics of human cloning, a B.Sc. in Zoology (Chemistry m.), and a B.A. in Psychology, as well as further graduate study in Genetics and Sustainability Leadership for a greener world. He earned degrees from Georgetown University, George Washington University, American University, the University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University. J.P. is a registered U.S. Patent Attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is also registered to practice before the U.S. Court of International Trade (USCIT), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), and the U.S. Supreme Court, among other courts.

Paula Knapp serves as an Assurance Officer in the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Paula holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology and is board certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology in Clinical Laboratory Science. Prior to joining OLAW in 2005, Paula was a Compliance Specialist for the intramural program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and an IACUC Coordinator and Protocol Analyst at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Lyndi Lahl is a Human Subjects Officer in the Division of Human Subjects Research (DHSR), Office of Extramural Research (OER). Ms. Lahl provides expertise and guidance in the areas of policy implementation and development for human subjects research. Ms. Lahl has served as an IRB member since 2013. Prior to joining DHSR, Ms. Lahl served as a Policy Health Specialist with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), Division of AIDS, as a Public Health Analyst with the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) and as a Research Nurse Specialist with the Intramural Division of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Ms Lahl received her BSN and M.S in Nursing Informatics from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, and a Certificate of Achievement from American University, School of Public Affairs, Key Executive Leader Program.

Yvonne Lau, MBBS, MBHL, PhD is the Director of the Division of Education and Development (DED) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). Dr. Lau received her medical degree from the University of Hong Kong, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCSEd) in the United Kingdom. She obtained her Master in Bioethics and Health Law (MBHL) and her PhD in Bioethics from the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Charlene E. Le Fauve, PhD, became the first Senior Advisor to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD) in December 2016. In this role, Dr. Le Fauve supports Dr. Marie Bernard who serves as the NIH acting COSWD as she leads NIH’s effort to diversify the biomedical research workforce by developing a vision and comprehensive strategy to expand recruitment and retention, and promote inclusiveness and equity throughout the biomedical research enterprise. Dr. Le Fauve came to COSWD from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) where she served as Deputy Director of the Office for Research on Disparities & Global Mental Health. Prior to joining NIMH, she was a Senior Policy Coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services where she led coordination and clearance activities of regulations, policy, and other reports for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and for implementation of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. Her federal career spans 20 years and includes leadership and health scientist roles at NIDA, NIAAA, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Dr. Le Fauve studied clinical psychology and behavioral medicine at the University of Georgia after completing her undergraduate education at Howard University. She completed her post-graduate work in the field of addiction medicine with an emphasis on perinatal addicted women and the treatment of co-occurring mental illness, addiction, and chronic pain at the Medical College of Virginia / Virginia Commonwealth University (MCV/VCU). She then joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Human Genetics and Psychiatry at MCV/VCU where she conducted behavior genetic research on African American adolescent twins and drug use as an NIH Principal Investigator on a Research Career Award, trained genetics counseling students, psychiatry residents and psychology interns in cultural diversity and clinical practice.

Office of the Director, NIH

Michael Lauer, M.D., is the Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he serves as the principal scientific leader and advisor to the Director of the NIH on all matters relating to the substance, quality, and effectiveness of the NIH extramural research program and administration. He received education and training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Albany Medical College, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and the NHLBI’s Framingham Heart Study. He spent 14 years at Cleveland Clinic as Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics. During his tenure at the Clinic, he led a federally funded internationally renowned clinical epidemiology program that applied big data from large-scale electronic health platforms to questions regarding the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease. From 2007 to 2015 he served as a Division Director at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), where promoted efforts to leverage big data infrastructure to enable high-efficiency population and clinical research and efforts to adopt a research funding culture that reflected data-driven policy. He has received numerous awards including the NIH Equal Employment Opportunity Award of the Year and the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Exceptional Federal Service in recognition of his efforts to grow a culture of learning and accountability.

Ms. Emily Linde is the Director of the Grants Management Program for the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She has been in grants management at the National Institutes of Health for 19 years. Prior to joining NIAID, Ms. Linde worked several other institutes, including in the Office of the Director (OD) in the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA); the National Cancer Institute (NCI); and the Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

P. Kay Lund is Director of the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce and the NIH Extramural Research Training Officer in the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She provides leadership for development, implementation, policy and evaluation of extramural programs related to research training, career development and diversity of the biomedical research workforce, including institutional training grants, individual pre- and postdoctoral fellowships and Career Development (K) awards. Recent emphasis has been on innovative strategies to recruit, retain and accelerate independence for early stage physician/clinician scientists, including new Institutional Research in Residency programs with opportunities for Transitional Scholar K awards during fellowship (Academic Medicine. 2017, 92:1382). Dr. Lund is Chair of the NIH Training Advisory Committee (TAC), a member of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) working group on Workforce Diversity and works closely with the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH).
Dr. Lund joined NIH from a career in academia including appointments at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she held a Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professorship. Throughout her entire career, she partnered with clinician investigators. Her research leading to more than 200 publications focused on the glucagon-like peptides (GLPs), insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and insulin family including basic molecular biology, gene structure and regulation and roles in intestinal epithelial renewal, regeneration, inflammatory bowel diseases and early stage cancer. Most recently, prior to her position at NIH, she studied roles of these mediators specifically in intestinal stem cells and early precancerous lesions.
Dr. Lund mentored many undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and early stage faculty, both Ph.D. and clinician scientists a majority of whom are succeeding as independent researchers. She has received many awards a subset of which include: Award for the Advancement of Women, the Davenport award from American Physiological Society and the 2016 Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterology Association. She recently received an NIH Directors Award for contributions to clinical trials policy in NIH training, fellowship and Career Development (K) awards. She is committed to optimizing training, career development, diversity and sustained and productive scientific and research careers for trainees, fellows and early stage investigators as well as their mentors.

Mr. Omar McCrimmon, a native Washingtonian, is the Division of Loan Repayment’s Communications and Outreach Specialist. He joins DLR with over six years of experience in health/science communications. Prior to joining the DLR, Omar spent five years at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) where he managed media relations, social media, and the exhibit program. From there, he moved to the Alzheimer’s Association where he played a role in managing public policy, and diversity program media relations. Omar holds a B.A. in Journalism from Norfolk State University, and a M.A. from Trinity University.

Jessica McKlveen, PhD, is a Scientific Review Officer at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) where she organizes special emphasis panels for applications submitted in response to funding opportunity announcements from the NCCIH.

Jessica received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati where she studied the role of the prefrontal glucocorticoid receptor in synaptic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral stress adaptation. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying the impact of binge-like alcohol consumption during adolescence or adulthood on synaptic plasticity and behavior. Prior to coming to the NIH, Jessica served as a Department of Defense (DoD) contractor supporting the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMP) as a Science Officer and the Medical Simulation and Information Sciences Research Program/Joint Program Committee-1 as a Technology Transfer Specialist and Assistant Portfolio Manager.

National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (NCCIH

Matt leads the newly-formed SEED Office to accelerate NIH-funded biomedical innovations from bench to bedside. SEED supports a comprehensive translational research ecosystem that includes a national network of academic proof-of-concept centers and a small business program that invests over $1 billion annually in a portfolio of more than 1500 life science companies. SEED also provides technical and entrepreneurial advisory services and builds relationships with business, finance, and healthcare stakeholders to ensure these innovations will impact patients’ lives. Matt has a diverse background in academia, biomedical small business, congressional policy, and NIH program development and management. He served as the director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination and created and led the National Eye Institute’s Office of Translational Research. His previous experience also includes service as the principal scientist for the bionic eye company Second Sight Medical Products and as a staff member on both the United States Senate and House of Representatives committees responsible for science, technology, and innovation policy. Matt holds a B.S. in Optical Engineering from the University of Rochester and a M.A and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.

Lisa Moeller, CRA is a Supervisory Grants Management Officer in the Grants Administration Branch at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). Her 25 years of experience as a research administrator includes pre- and post-award experience with NRSA institutional training grants and fellowships. NIGMS supports over 4000 NRSA pre- and postdoctoral trainees annually through fellowships (F’s) and institutional training grants (T’s), equal to approximately twenty-five percent of the overall NIH Kirschstein-NRSA budget. Prior to joining NIH in 2000, Lisa worked at the American Red Cross Jerome H. Holland Laboratory as a research administrator at the departmental level and later as the Manager of the Sponsored Programs Office.

Carolyn Mosby is a Program Analyst within the Division of Extramural Technology and Resources in the Office of Extramural Research (OER). She joined OER after serving as a Program Assistant to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a Federal Advisory Committee within the Office of Science Policy (OSP), Office of Biotechnology Activities (OBA). While there, Carolyn planned and coordinated meetings and teleconferences, and provided assistance to high level voting members and non-voting ex officio members from 15 federal agencies and departments. She worked with the Health Science Policy Analyst by scheduling site visits to NIH grantee institutions. She also assessed reports of institutional laboratory research related accidents and violations of policy provided in NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules. Carolyn also worked with the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) maintaining information related to scientific protocols using the Genetic Modification Clinical Research Information System (GeMCRIS) database.
Prior to working in OSP, Carolyn worked in the Office of Technology Transfer Office (OTT), where she served as the Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA) Coordinator. Carolyn contributed substantively to two CRADA Review Working Groups to develop an electronic process that led to dramatically reduced process times and a measurable reduction in errors.

Grace Olascoaga is Chief Grants Management Officer of the Grants Administration Branch at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). She provides leadership in the financial and business administration of extramural funding for the wide range of research and training grant programs supported by NIGMS. Prior to her current position, Grace served as a Team Leader and Grants Management Specialist at NIGMS. She is a graduate of The University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

Mr. Brian O'Laughlin is the Deputy Director of the NIDA Consolidated Operations Acquisition Center (COAC). The NIDA COAC services the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Mr. O'Laughlin holds an unlimited warrant and both Contracting and Contracting Officer Representative Level III Federal Acquisition Certifications. Mr. O'Laughlin received his Masters in Public Administration from American University. He is originally from northern Delaware, where he also received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware.

Christine Pfund, Ph.D. is a senior scientist with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). Dr. Pfund earned her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology, followed by post-doctoral research in Plant Pathology, both at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Pfund’s work focuses on developing, implementing, documenting, and studying interventions to optimize research mentoring relationships across science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Dr. Pfund co-authored the original Entering Mentoring curriculum and co-authored many papers documenting the effectiveness of this approach. Dr. Pfund is the principal investigator of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) Coordination Center. She is also director of the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experience in Research at UW-Madison (CIMER). She is a member of the National Academies committee that recently published the consensus report and online guide, The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland concentrating on cellular biology and comparative physiology. Dr. Politis then turned to immunology with postdoctoral research in signal transduction and gene regulation in interferon-stimulated macrophages at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He subsequently took his interest in macrophages to Human Genome Sciences, Inc., where he worked as a scientist in the Cell Biology Department. Before joining CSR, initially as the SRA for the Immunological Sciences Study Section, Dr. Politis served as the assistant editor for the Journal of Immunology, where he implemented the “Cutting Edge” rapid communications vehicle and served as a section editor. He has also lectured at the University of Maryland in cell biology, immunology, and animal diversity.

Center for Scientific Review (CSR), NIH

Dr. Nishadi Rajapakse is a program director in the Division of Scientific Programs at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). At NIHMD, she directs the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Centers for Health Disparities Research Focused on Precision Medicine (U54) initiative, NIMHD’s first venture into the field of precision medicine (PM). This is a unique focus on understanding the complex interplay between biological, behavioral, social and environmental factors in developing new diagnostic or therapeutic approaches. In 2011, she led a new collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a novel pilot initiative to establish environmental health disparities (EHD) cores within existing NIMHD Centers of Excellence (COE). Currently, she leads the Centers of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research Program. This initiative is a joint undertaking with NIEHS and EPA to better understand environmentally driven health disparities and improve access to healthy environments for health disparity populations. In addition, she serves as a Program Official for the NIMHD RO1 program, and the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program.

Dr. Rajapakse received her PhD in Molecular Medicine & Translational Sciences from Wake Forest University where her research focused on traumatic brain injury in adults and newborns and targeting mitochondria in developing therapies to hypoxia-ischemia induced sequalae. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in genetic epidemiology at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) where she examined genetic and environmental risk factors in the development of cardiovascular disease, sepsis and rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Rajapakse also holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research from Duke University. She has published more than 25 peer-reviewed articles in biomedical journals and served as a guest editor for The Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), NIH

Dr. Mike Reddy has been a Program Director in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology since 2012. He is responsible for overseeing grants in the areas of DNA Replication & Repair, as well as Protein Synthesis. Before joining the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), Dr. Reddy was a discipline scientist in the Planetary Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters (in Washington, D.C.). Prior to that position, he served a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2008, Dr. Reddy was a tenured faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where his laboratory studied viruses (phage and poxvirus). He conducted postdoctoral research in the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon. Dr. Reddy earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

Dr. Nicole Redmond is a board-certified internal medicine physician who completed her MD/PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, South Carolina. She completed her internal medicine (primary care track) residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health as a part of her training in the Harvard Fellowships in General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to joining NHLBI, Dr. Redmond was Assistant Professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Dr. Redmond’s research portfolio academically, and now as a program official, is focused on intervention research related to the psychological, social, behavioral, and clinical contributors to cardiovascular health and disease. She also has a significant interest in the career development of clinicians and scientists, particularly those who are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Hypertension, and Journal of the American Heart Association.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIH

Rob Rivers, PhD is a program director at National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). He leads programs that help to foster the recruitment and training of underrepresented biomedical investigators. He leads the Short Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons Program , Diversity Supplement Program and the F-31 Diversity Portfolio for NIDDK. In addition to his work in science he is active in the local and global community and was instrumental in starting the international non-profit organization Umbrella Initiatives Foundation that helps in providing improved educational opportunities to children living in poverty in Peru and Bolivia (www.umbrellainitiatives.org).  He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Cambridge and his B.S. degree also in chemistry from Kentucky State University.

National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK), NIH

Dr. Laura Roman is the Customer Relations Manager and Product Owner for eSubmissions, Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking (ASSIST) and CRIMS at eRA. She received her PhD in Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine studying epithelial cell polarity. Dr. Roman also has a MBA from the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola University, Maryland. She did postdoctoral studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg Germany, and was a Howard Hughes fellow at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Prior to coming to NIH in 2004, Dr. Roman was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute where her lab focused on understanding the factors controlling neural crest cell development. Before joining eRA in April 2016, she was an Associate Director in the Division of Receipt and Referral at the Center for Scientific Review.

Mercedes Rubio, a program director in the Division of Clinical Innovation, manages a portfolio of Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program grants. Prior to joining NCATS, Rubio was a program director at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), where she managed the Bridges to the Baccalaureate Research Training Program; the National Research Mentoring Network of the NIH Common Fund’s Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce Initiative; the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards; and the Research to Understand and Inform Interventions that Promote the Research Careers of Individuals in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences portfolios. She also served as a program officer in the NIGMS Postdoctoral Research Associate Program.

Prior to her tenure at NIGMS, Rubio was chief of the Psychopathology Risk and Protective Factors Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and was assistant director of that Institute’s Individual Research Fellowship Program. Rubio worked on the Physician–Scientist Workforce Report and managed the NIH Loan Repayment Program at NIMH and NIGMS.

Rubio holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University, Bakersfield, and a doctorate in medical sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she also completed postdoctoral training in nursing in the area of HIV intervention and health disparities.

Since 2013, Ms. Dede Rutberg has been NIDCR's Chief Grants Management Officer. In this role Ms. Rutberg oversees the business operations for a variety of grant mechanisms (~1,200 research project grants) totaling over ~$400 million and a staff of 5 Grants Specialist. Ms. Rutberg's branch ensures that grant awards are processed accurately and timely and are administered within NIH/DHHS policies. Additionally, her team provides expert guidance and policy interpretation to grantees and internal NIH staff on all grant-related issues. Ms. Rutberg currently serves on many trans-NIH committees, including the OD COMMON Fund High-Risk High Reward committee, the OD Biomedical Workgroup committee, Co-chair of the GMAC NRSA & Career Award workgroup and several other workgroups. Prior to joining DHHS/NIH in 2002, Ms. Rutberg worked for 5 years at Marriott International Corporate Headquarters, overseeing and administering a 3.5-million-dollar Department of Labor Welfare-to-Work program. Ms. Rutberg received a Master of Business Administrative degree from University of Maryland in 2003.

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), NIH

Dr. Sasiela has over a decade of experience providing support and consultation to academic innovators and small businesses engaged in therapeutic, device, and diagnostic development programs. As the Innovator Support Team Lead in SEED (Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development) in the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health, Chris coordinates the activities of a team of seasoned professionals with experience in product and business strategy, business development, fundraising, partnerships, reimbursement, and regulatory affairs. Chris is passionate about enabling NIH’s innovator community to progress their discoveries as far as science and human biology permit. Starting her career as a researcher, Chris worked in basic research at the University of Southern California and the University of Maryland, and in drug discovery, development, and improvement groups at Baxter, the Department of the Army, and the National Cancer Institute. Chris transitioned from a research to a regulatory career path via an Interagency Oncology Taskforce Fellowship at the US Food and Drug Administration. Continuing her regulatory career path at Social & Scientific Systems, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Chris deepened her experience working with product development researchers understand, develop, and execute regulatory plans to get their innovative technologies from ideas to first-in-human and beyond. She regularly conducts project-focused consultations, delivers educational seminars, and develops regulatory resources for internal and external audiences. Dr. Sasiela earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Whittier College, a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy, and has maintained Regulatory Affairs Certification status from the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society since 2011.

Joe Schumaker is an eRA Communication Specialist for the Office of Extramural Research. Joe joined the team in November 2011. Previous to this, Joe was the Director of Services for a small IT consulting company based out of Decatur GA. As such, he travelled extensively around the country and Canada implementing, consulting on, and customizing a communications and collaborative solution called FirstClass. His current responsibilities for eRA include communications about the status of eRA Commons, writing the NIH's eRA Items of Interests articles, and the development and production of tutorial videos on various aspects of the grant process. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Stetson University and a Master’s of Science Education from the University of Florida.

Michael Sesma, Ph.D., is chief of the Postdoctoral Training Branch in the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD) at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. In this role, Dr. Sesma oversees postdoctoral programs for research training, postdoctoral fellowships, career development programs, as well as the Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) and research programs in training interventions. Dr. Sesma is also a program officer for the Genetics of Behavior and Circadian Biology research grant portfolio in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.
Dr. Sesma began his NIH career at NIGMS in 1994 as a scientific review administrator in the Office of Scientific Review and as a program director in the institute’s Division of Genetics and Developmental Biology. In 2002, he moved to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where he was chief of the Research Scientist Development Program in the Office for Special Populations. He returned to NIGMS in 2012 as a branch chief in TWD.
Dr. Sesma earned his B.A. in biology and psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and the Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Riverside. He conducted postdoctoral research at Vanderbilt University. Prior to joining NIH, Sesma served on the faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis School of Optometry and the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

Dr. Lana Shekim is the Director for the Voice and Speech Programs in the Division of a Scientific Programs (DSP) at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). She is responsible for the supervision of a comprehensive research program in voice and speech sciences and disorders. Dr. Shekim serves as the NIDCD representative to the NIH Global Health Research Working Group, the NIH International Representatives Committee, the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee, the NIH Science of Behavioral Change Working Group, the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Working Group and the NIH Rehabilitation Research Coordinating Committee. She joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2001.

Prior to joining the NIH, she served on the faculty of the George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC and directed the Speech-Language Pathology Service at the GWU Medical Center and was a member of the GWU Voice Clinic. Dr. Shekim’s clinical expertise is in the management of individuals with acquired neurologic communication disorders. She earned her doctorate from the University of Florida in Gainesville where she examined discourse production in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Shekim completed postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuropsychology at Johns Hopkins University.

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), NIH

Grace L. Shen, Ph.D., is a Program Director at the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she has served as the Group Leader and Program Officer for the extramural program in retinal diseases research since 2012. She received education and training at Imperial College (London, UK), Institute of Psychiatry (London, UK), St. Louis University School of Medicine, and National Cancer Institute (NCI). Her research in oncogene led to the seminal finding in the identification of the involvement of the myconcogene in the nonrandom chromosomal rearrangement event in cancer and was recognized as an expert in the myb oncogene field.

During her extramural career with NIH, Dr. Shen has also served as Director of the Ocular Immunology Program and the Group Leader and Director for the Cornea Diseases Program at NEI (2003-2011). She was a member of the National Cancer Institute’s extramural program where she managed grants in the Cancer Immunology and Cancer Genetics Programs (1991-2000). Dr. Shen has also worked in the biotech sector as the Scientific Director of the Oncology Program at Gene Logic Inc. (2000-2003). While there, she developed and managed a multi-million Affymetrix microarray project to generate a database with gene expression profile for over 4500 tumor and control samples with searchable clinical parameters for human patients. She also served as a reviewer for an NIH-SBIR study section.

National Eye Institute (NEI), NIH

Dr. Julia Slutsman is a bioethicist and Director of Genomic Data Sharing Policy Implementation in the Office of Extramural Research, NIH. Her work focusses on the operationalization of activities that support genomic data sharing while maintaining research participant confidentiality and data privacy.

Previously, Dr. Slutsman worked as the Director of Research Regulatory Affairs at Children’s National Medical Center and was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She has extensive expertise in implementing human subject protections, clinical research compliance and in developing policy for research oversight of pediatric and adult clinical research programs. Dr. Slutsman has held numerous positions within the National Institutes of Health. She worked as a bioethicist in the NIH Office of Human Subject Protections and in the Department of Bioethics. She served as the bioethicist for the National Children’s Study at the Eunice K. Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

She has conducted and published empirical bioethics research in a number of areas. Her current research interests include the following: informed consent and data sharing in research, ethical and policy implications of single IRB review of research, parental decision-making in research involving children and ethical issues related to the review and conduct of public health emergency research.

Dr. Slutsman earned her Ph.D. from the Program in Law, Ethics and Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the ethics of public health and cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Mr. Philip Smith is an Assistant Compliance Officer within the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA). Prior to joining OPERA, Philip was a Grants Management Specialist at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for 6 years. Philip also has worked in the accounting field in the area of reinsurance for a large financial services company. He has received his BS in Business Administration with a specialization in International Business from the University of Baltimore and his MS in Accounting and Business Advisory Services from University of Baltimore & Towson University Joint Master’s Program.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

Joel Snyderman is a Systems Policy Analyst in OER’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA), Systems Policy Branch, where he represents NIH on policy initiatives at the HHS and Federal-wide levels to ensure the successful implementation of critical systems and compliance requirements across NIH. He joined OPERA in 2010 as an Assistant Grants Compliance Officer, after working for the NIH Office of Management Assessment, where he investigated allegations of grant fraud, waste, and abuse. Mr. Snyderman began his Federal career as an Analyst with the Dallas Audit Division of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Inspector General. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Rochester, and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Sorensen is Chief of the Integrative Neuroscience Branch within the Division of Neuroscience and Behavior at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Branch supports a basic and preclinical extramural research grant portfolio that seeks to identify the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms and neural circuitry of drug abuse and addiction. This includes describing the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the functional changes in neuronal excitability, synaptic plasticity, homeostasis, and communication within neural circuits and networks that are affected by substance misuse and addiction. Dr. Sorensen received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a M.P.A. in Healthcare Management and Policy from Rutgers University-Camden, NJ. Dr. Sorensen was on the faculty at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, prior to joining the NIH in 2000 as a Program Official for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). He moved to the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA] in 2007. Dr. Sorensen contributes to various programs and planning activities across the NIH including the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience, the BRAIN Initiative, and the NIH Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions [SPARC] Common Fund programs. At NIDA, Dr. Sorensen is the contact for the NIH Pathways to Independence Award [K99/R00] program in basic research and co-Chair of the NIDA-NIAAA Neuroscience Workgroup.

Division of Neuroscience and Behavior

National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH

Dr. Ashim Subedee is the Academic Innovation Lead within SEED (NIH’s Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development Office). Ashim oversees and coordinates programs at NIH to foster academic innovation and entrepreneurship including the coordination of NIH’s academic proof-of-concept network that includes 92 research institutions across 34 states and Puerto Rico. Ashim has a diverse background in academia, small business programs, biomedical innovation, and NIH program development and management. Prior to SEED, Ashim was a Program Director at the National Cancer Institute's SBIR Development Center where he managed small business program grants and contracts with a focus on cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, cancer prevention, digital health, and therapeutic devices. He also initiated and led several programs including investor initiatives, mentoring programs, translational workshops, and targeted funding opportunities. Ashim came to the NIH as a Presidential Management Fellow. During the fellowship, Ashim also spent 6 months at the FDA CDER. Ashim received his PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University where his dissertation work was focused on molecular mechanisms of triple negative breast cancer.

Small Business Education and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED), OER

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

John Sullivan has been a leader in healthcare technology innovation throughout his career, with extensive experience in operating, investing in, developing and acquiring market-leading businesses.

Prior to the NIH, John worked with healthcare leaders such as Cardinal Health (VP, Strategy and Business Development) and Boston Scientific. He was a Partner with Foundation Medical Partners, a national healthcare venture capital firm with financial backing from the Cleveland Clinic. He also helped to start Molecular Staging Inc., a biotechnology tools company spun out of Yale University School of Medicine. Working with Yale University founders, he helped grow the company to over 100 employees, develop its product and service lines, and ultimately sell the company to Qiagen, a global life sciences company. He has served on the boards of directors of Semprus Biosciences (acquired, Teleflex), Coapt Systems (acquired, MicroAire), KEW Group, and Direct Flow Medical and held board observer roles at BridgePoint Medical (acquired, Boston Scientific) and Explorys (acquired, IBM).

John earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering degree with distinction from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Donna R. Sullivan has 25 years of NIH experience to share. Previous positions include Program Analyst and Grants Management Specialist with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Approximately twelve years ago she joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is currently one of the Branch Chief’s in the Grants Management Program (GMP) and the GMP Coordinator for the Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation (DAIT). For the past few years, Donna has assisted in training the NIAID Grants Management Specialists on procedures for foreign grants and has served as a policy resource for staff, as well as, foreign grantees.

Dr. Elyse Sullivan is part of the Strategic Communications team within the Division of Communications and Outreach (DCO), and also serves as Clinical Trials Program Manager within the Office of Extramural Research (OER). In her communications capacity, Dr. Sullivan helps disseminate important grants process and policy information by developing websites, blogs, newsletters, and multimedia training tools. Dr. Sullivan also contributes to legislative responses and inquiries from the media on behalf of OER. As Clinical Trial Program Manager, Dr. Sullivan is intimately involved in the planning, implementation, and communication of reforms and policy changes for human subjects and clinical trial research. Dr. Sullivan received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she studied translational electrophysiological biomarkers in schizophrenia.

Kristin Ta joined the Division of Grants Policy as a Grants Policy Analyst. She has been with NIH for over 7 years, most recently serving as a Senior Program Analyst in the Office of Management Assessment, Division of Program Integrity, where she led reviews of allegations of misuse of NIH grant and contract funds and employee misconduct. Prior to that, Kristin worked as a post-award administrator in the Department of Biochemistry at George Washington University. Kristin studied Health and Societies and Environmental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and has an MPH in Health Promotion from George Washington University.

Mr. Ryan Talesnik has been a Grants Management Specialist at NICHD/NIH since 2006. Mr. Talesnik has a highly diversified grant portfolio including research project grants, NRSA fellowship and training awards, career development awards, foreign grants and clinical trial networks. Mr. Talesnik serves as the Grants Management liaison on a number of NICHD working groups and committees and serves as the Grants Management contact for the K99/R00 program.

National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), NIH

Samantha Tempchin serves as the Chief Grants Management Officer for the National Library of Medicine, where she oversees the administrative, business, and financial management of NLM’s portfolio of grant awards in biomedical informatics and data science. Samantha has been a part of the NIH grants community since 2006, with previous positions as an Assistant Grants Compliance Officer in NIH’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA), as a Grants Management Specialist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and as a Grants Management Analyst at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to manage diverse portfolios of grants and cooperative agreements, lead numerous training workshops for grant recipients and Federal staff, and conduct proactive administrative site visits for international grant recipients in Europe and Asia. Samantha received her Bachelor’s degree in English and Music from Tufts University and a Masters of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Maryland College Park.

Division of Extramural Programs

National Library of Medicine (NLM), NIH

Dennis A. Twombly, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director of Extramural Policy at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In this position, he is involved in developing and interpreting NIH grant policies and in administering the institute’s extramural funding programs. He is also NICHD’s Training Officer, overseeing various types of training awards including NRSA fellowships, career development awards, institutional training programs (T32 and K12), and education grants (R25). Dr. Twombly is Chair of NICHD’s Training Policy Committee and co-Chair of the NIH-wide Training Advisory Committee (TAC).
Dr. Twombly received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the UCLA Brain Research Institute, with primary focus on the neurophysiology of epilepsy. Prior to joining the NIH, he held a faculty position at Northwestern University School of Medicine (Chicago) in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology. He was Principal Investigator of a variety of NIH research project grants on mechanisms of action of antiepileptic drugs, effects of alcohol on neuronal ion channels and receptors, and mechanisms of alcohol and aging in cardiac ventricular myocytes. Dr. Twombly came to NIH in 2001, serving for 9 years as Program Director of Neurophysiology & Pharmacology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). He assumed his current position at NICHD in 2009. Along with his scientific and administrative activities, Dr. Twombly has played a major role at NIH in organizing various science education and outreach activities for middle-school and high school students and other members of the public.

Dr. Valdez serves at the NIH Extramural Research Integrity Officer in the Office of Extramural Programs (OEP), in the Office of Extramural Research (OER). In this role, she is responsible for training NIH Extramural staff and Research Integrity Officers on handling allegations of research misconduct in NIH-funded extramural activities and for performing the initial review and referral of allegations to the appropriate oversight agencies. Prior to joining the OER, Dr. Valdez was the Manager of Publication Ethics for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) where she handled all allegations of scientific misconduct in ASBMB journals, including the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Dr. Valdez received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley where she studied T cell development. She carried out her Postdoctoral training in the Immunology Discovery department at Genentech, where she focused on both basic research and pre-clinical drug development. Dr. Valdez continued her research as an NIH Intramural Staff Scientist in the NIAID Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Disease.

Mr. Robert Vinson serves as a Program Manager for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) SBIR/STTR Program in the Office of Extramural Programs, Office of Extramural Research (OER). In this role he is responsible for providing resources to Federal staffers and access to critical information for the small business community seeking early-stage Federal funding. His duties include serving as the Contracting Officer’s Representative for the NIH Niche Assessment Program and the Commercialization Accelerator Program. These programs provide technical assistance, market analysis, and commercialization guidance for NIH SBIR/STTR Phase I and Phase II awardees. Rob is also the OER Task Manager for the NIH Performance Outcomes Data System.
Before joining the SBIR/STTR Program Office, he was a Senior Grants Policy Analyst at the National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute (NHLBI). In that role, he managed initiatives and special projects on a variety of grants and administrative policy issues. Rob had been with NHLBI since 1993 where his career began as a Grants Management Specialist and rose to the positions of Team Leader, Grants Management Officer, and Branch Chief. Prior to joining NIH, Rob was a commercial loan officer, with an emphasis on small business development and community revitalization.

Anil Wali is a Program Director in the Integrated Networks Branch of the NCI’s CRCHD since 2009. In this role, Dr. Wali contributes to the grants management of CRCHD’s Geographic Management of Cancer Health Disparities Program. He also provides technical and scientific expertise to the Comprehensive Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (CPACHE U54) program.

Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Wali served as Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Pathology at the NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan. While at Wayne State University, Dr. Wali served as Principal Investigator on a Veterans Administration Merit Review award funded project on the Role of Ubiquitin-Proteasome Pathway in Mesothelioma Carcinogenesis. Dr. Wali conducted NCI Clinical trial on asbestos exposed patient populations to determine their risk for developing Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma using high throughput Genomics and Proteomics technologies.

Integrated Networks Branch

National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH

Crystal Wolfrey is the Director of the Office of Grants Administration and the Chief Grants Management Officer for the National Cancer Institute. She joined the NCI in January 1987, and has served in a variety of roles, including as a Grants Management Specialist and a special grants expert for clinical trials. She has also served as a Team Leader and a Branch Chief, as well as the OGA Deputy Director. Prior to joining the NCI, she was a program specialist in the Scholars-in-Residence Program at the Fogarty International Center. Crystal is a graduate of the University of Maryland where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in marketing research.