Scholars and Researchers

May 2017

Rephrasing an old adage, “It takes a village to grow a research university,” I am pleased that the University of Idaho faculty, staff and students are so willing to partner with Office of Research and Economic Development to grow our village.

With this in mind, I’m excited to announce the newly created ORED Faculty and Staff Fellows Program. The fellows will pursue special initiatives and assist me in strategic planning across the research enterprise. Their engagement is designed to build new partnerships and expand our capabilities in research, scholarship and creative activity. The fellows will collaborate closely with the ORED team, and at the same time serve as envoys to help to communicate our office’s mission, goals and programs to the broad university community. The fellows also have an opportunity to explore administrative roles and build leadership capacity.

Specific fellowship assignments and length will vary based on the needs of the office, but initial appointments for the summer pilot program will likely be extended into the academic year.

The five inaugural ORED Faculty and Staff Fellows are:

Steven Daley-Laursen, Faculty Fellow for Federal Research Relations.
Daley-Laursen will augment the university’s interface with federal research sponsors, with a focus on the departments of Commerce, Agriculture and Interior. He also will grow the ORED faculty training series by developing a workshop for faculty on effective communications with elected officials and their staff.
Ann Norton, Staff Fellow for Core Facilities.
Norton will conduct a comprehensive inventory of the current core facilities that offer research services and shared resources for all members of our campus community. She will also explore best practices of core facilities at target Carnegie R1 research institutions. This work will help guide our university for providing quality and efficient service among shared research facilities.
Paul Gessler, Faculty Fellow for Cyberinfrastructure and Data Science.
Gessler will help develop strategies for the university to compete in the Big Data research arena. Some specific projects include evaluating opportunities for ORED, the Northwest Knowledge Network, the library and ITS to coordinate efforts on research data management, contribute to developing a UI research cybersecurity plan, and maintaining computing collaborations with the Idaho National Laboratory and the Center for the Advanced Energy Studies partners.
Scott Slovic, Faculty Fellow for Cross-Disciplinary Collaborations.
Slovic will serve as a coordinator of interdisciplinary faculty collaborations, with a special emphasis in the arts, humanities and social sciences. In this role, he will help identify faculty members whose work seems to intersect in interesting ways and who may possibly develop collaborative projects in the future. Watch for an announcement this fall for a series of informal “Coffee Conversations” hosted by ORED to help catalyze these collegial connections.
Michelle Wiest, Faculty Fellow for Research Rigor and Reproducibility.
Wiest will develop a path forward to enhance the scientific rigor and reproducibility of research conducted at the university. She will provide consultation on ways to increase collaboration on study design, project and data analytic management, and statistical analysis. Some anticipated outcomes will be to foster translational research (specifically with our involvement in the Mountain West CRT-IN program) and to bolster inclusion of statisticians on relevant grant proposals.

I am pleased to welcome this fantastic group of leaders, scholars and thinkers to my team. I am excited to work together, pursuing mutual practices to assist and support our faculty, staff and students.

Go Vandals!

Janet E. Nelson
Vice President
Research and Economic Development