This spring semester, the second cohort of the Research Leadership Program (RLP) began the second half of their year-long program. Hosted by the Office of Research Advancement and Partnerships (ORAP), the RLP is a cohort-based program for mid-career faculty (associate and above) to learn the communication, interpersonal, organization, and project-planning skills required to lead large multidisciplinary grant projects.
This year’s cohort consists of 22 faculty systemwide. Participants completed an 8-week research leadership course last fall and two one-on-one coaching sessions with AtKisson Training Group, an external facilitator. This spring, participants attended monthly sessions hosted by ORAP focused on applying leadership skills in a WSU-specific institutional context.
Spring sessions kicked off with a January Q&A panel session with several WSU research leaders experienced in leading and managing large projects, including Maureen Schmitter-Edgecomb, Regents Professor and H. L. Eastlick Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology, Juming Tang, Regents Professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, and Jordan Jobe, project manager for the AgAID Institute. Discussion topics included strategies for maintaining your own lab/research program while leading large projects, the value and role of project managers in center-type grants, effective selection of advisory board members, and ways to sustain institutes and centers beyond a grant’s award period. Other sessions this spring included presentations on building effective teams, institutional resources available to support large projects at WSU, and large project design and management.
Below is a list of faculty members participating in the 2022-2023 cohort:
Ani Jayakaran, Biological Systems Engineering
David Makin, Criminal Justice and Criminology
Sergey Lapin, Mathematics and Statistics
Alexander Dimitrov, Mathematics and Statistics
Brian French, Kinesiology and Educational Psychology
Dustin McLarty, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Julia Day, School of Design & Construction
Jean-Sabin McEwen, Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering
Heiko Jansen, Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience
Kate Huyvaert, Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology
Andrei Smertenko, Institute of Biological Chemistry
Cynthia Gleason, Plant Pathology
Kiwamu Tanaka, Plant Pathology
Achour Amiri, Plant Pathology
Bin Yang, Biological Systems Engineering
Kimberly McKeirnan, Pharmacotherapy
Shannon Tushingham, Anthropology
Alexander Fremier, School of the Environment
Jinwen Zhang, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Venera Arnaoudova, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Assefaw Gebremedhin, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Eric Shelden, School of Molecular Biosciences
Since the program’s inception two years ago, 30 faculty from 20 departments, seven colleges, and nine campuses have participated. Keep an eye out this summer for an announcement soliciting nominations for a third cohort that we hope to offer in the fall. Please contact Sofia D’Ambrosio, proposal consultant for ORAP, by email at sofia.dambrosio@wsu.edu for more information.