OVPR Welcomes New Staff Members with Broad Range of Research Administration Experience
Baylor’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research (OVPR) is welcoming new team members to support Baylor’s research enterprise. Thirteen experienced staff and manager hires are key to building a sufficient research administration infrastructure that better assists research faculty. Focused hiring efforts have led to the recruitment of veteran research administrators from institutions like Duke, Rice, UT, Penn State and more.
“We’re excited to welcome these new team members to Baylor,” Kevin Chambliss, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Research, said. “Experience is key. They bring knowledge from respected R1 institutions and medical centers, and will help position us to provide the best service to our faculty throughout the grants process.”
Together, the new hires add more than 100 years of research experience to the OVPR team. They join a restructured research administration team designed to serve Baylor faculty more efficiently. Instead of a single URA team within OVPR, the URA role is now split into pre-award and post-award responsibilities, and is incorporated into the larger Pre- and Post-Award groups. These changes allow for a more manageable and specialized workload, with each OVPR team member providing services in their wheelhouse of expertise.
Additionally, the upcoming launch of Baylor’s electronic research administration system, Compliance and Research Administration (CARA), provides an industry-standard, systemic approach to research administration that will further streamline communication with and services to faculty.
“These changes will work to close the gap between the volume of Baylor’s research activity and the research infrastructure to support that activity,” Chambliss said. “In our last faculty meeting, we discussed how our research has grown at a faster rate than our infrastructure, and there’s no doubt that these transitions weren’t as smooth as we’d like them to have been.
“Collectively, these organizational improvements will have a step function change in the level and quality of support our faculty feel and in the relational aspects of the work we’re doing together.”
Additionally, Chambliss credits departments throughout the University for the success OVPR ultimately experienced while working to break through industry-wide hiring challenges to welcome new staff.
“I’m grateful to Baylor Operations, Finance & Administration and to Human Resources for their support and creativity in enabling us to go after these experienced professionals. Our industry is dealing with challenges in acquiring and retaining research administration talent, but Baylor has supported these efforts in a manner that’s had a positive effect on our ability to recruit these talented administrators.”
Many of the newest hires have already started, with more coming throughout the summer. Meet a few of the newest members of the OVPR team who have already started at Baylor:
Leah Acajabon, Senior Post-Award Financial Analyst: Leah comes from Penn State College of Medicine. She has 6 years’ experience managing large portfolios in all aspects of research financial management. She is a CRA and holds an active leadership role in the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA).
RaKeisha Bell, Senior Post-award Financial Analyst: RaKeisha comes from Rice University where she has been in Research Accounting since 2014. She was responsible for the DOE, DOD, and NIH training grant portfolios and has Oracle Cloud PPM experience.
Julie Duiker, Senior Post-award URA: Julie is a Certified Research Administrator (CRA) with her most recent experience at UT Austin. She has 13 years’ experience managing a 200-project portfolio as a local/departmental grants administrator.
James Faulk, Manager, Post-award URAs: James comes from Duke University where he worked in post-award grants and contracts since 2016. He managed a team of local/departmental grants administrators in the School of Medicine and led efforts in various process improvements.
Ryan Sease, Senior Pre-Award URA: Ryan comes from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center where he developed proposals and related documents for a large group of PIs. He has 8 years’ experience in pre-award research administration and has worked both in the central office and directly with PIs.
Erika Sullivan, Manager, Pre-Award Central Office : Erika comes from UT San Antonio where she managed a Pre-Award group responsible for proposal preparation, proposal review, proposal submission, award receipt and negotiation, and compliance assurance. She has 7 years’ experience in pre-award.
Denni Swepston, Manager, Post-award Financial Analysts: Denni comes from Oklahoma State University where she has served in management/director-level roles in Grants and Contracts for both Pre- and Post-Award functions. She has specific experience working with growing and re-structured teams.
Carissa Grant White, Manager, Pre-Award URAs: Carissa comes from Boston Medical Center, but she has spent most of her career at Emory. She was in a local/departmental pre-award role in the Department of Medicine between 2014 and 2021 and progressed to the pre-award team lead. She also has central pre-award experience.
Luke Whiting, CARA Support Specialist: Luke is joining the VPR team from Baylor’s IT team, where he currently manages the IT help desk. He supports campus IT communication and encourages a customer service focus.