Office of Research to host retirement party for Geeta Dutta
With many positive emotions tinged with sadness, the Office of Research has announced the retirement of Geeta Dutta, assistant vice president of the Office of Research Advancement and Partnerships. The Office of Research will host a retirement reception for Dutta at 3 p.m., on Friday, May 13, in the Lighty Atrium.
Light refreshments will be provided during the reception. Remarks will be given by Chris Keane, vice president for research at WSU and vice chancellor for research at WSU Pullman.
“Please join me and the entire Office of Research in celebrating Geeta’s time at WSU before her retirement. Geeta has done an outstanding job supporting the WSU Office of Research and the WSU research community. She has served as an important strategic leader for the Office of Research, helping our office navigate the numerous complex challenges that arise every day. Her work has made a tremendous positive difference across the WSU system,” said Keane.
Dutta came to WSU in 2010, where she worked in the Office of Grants and Research Development as a proposal writer and editor. She supported numerous proposals that brought in several million dollars of grant funds to WSU, the largest of which was the FAA ASCENT Center of Excellence that remains highly active and successful today.
In 2015, she launched the Office of Research Advancement and Partnerships (ORAP) with a vision to provide proposal writing training for junior faculty and help with individual and multidisciplinary large proposals. ORAP has since expanded its responsibilities to include funding search announcements, running limited-submission competitions, managing a $20 million strategic research investment program, and providing oversight of university-wide core and shared facilities and Office of Research Centers. She also managed the successful Grand Challenge investment program from creation of the request for proposals in FY2016 to its completion in FY2021. This program has had a return on investment of approximately 17 times.
“Under Geeta’s leadership, ORAP has developed a robust proposal writing training program for junior faculty that has helped several faculty win National Science Foundation CAREER awards and other prestigious grants. Before the end of this semester, this training will be available as online video recordings for faculty to use at their convenience,” said Keane. “ORAP has provided support to almost 400 proposals since its inception and 88 of those were funded bringing approximately $250 million of research funds to WSU.”
Before joining WSU, Dutta spent 12 years at CTB/McGraw-Hill in various positions including science writer, senior editor, and publishing director managing a large group of writers, editors, and print and online page-production personnel. She received a doctorate degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP) and National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) and has served as an editor of the NCURA Magazine. Dutta was also selected as an Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Council on Research (CoR) Research Leader Fellow. The fellowship program is designed to provide training and skill development to individuals who work closely in various capacities with Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts, and Vice Chancellors for Research.