NORDP 2018 Conference Cameo: Anne Maglia

#NORDP2018 starts Monday, May 7 in Arlington, VA. Keep checking back here at the blog and on our Twitter feed (@NORDP_official) for live conference updates. Register here: http://www.nordp.org/conferences.
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Who: Anne Maglia, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Administration and Institutional Compliance
Where: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Number of years in research development: 1
Length of NORDP membership: 1
Number of NORDP conferences attended: 2018 will be my first!
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Park Ranger

I’m pretty new to research development—I started in my position at UMass Lowell about a year and a half ago after six years as a program director and science advisor at the National Science Foundation. I loved working at NSF, but really missed being at an academic institution and working directly with faculty. As the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Compliance, I supervise our offices of Research Administration and Institutional Compliance and help develop strategies to improve our success in extramurally-funded research. The favorite parts of my job are working with faculty to help make proposals more competitive, using data analytics to develop strategies for investing in shared infrastructure and mid- to large-scale research activities, helping to develop interdisciplinary connections among our researchers, and working with our Vice Provost for Faculty Success to provide training and support resources for faculty.

I’m a certified project management professional (PMP), and relied on my PMP training quite a bit at NSF, especially when managing multimillion-dollar infrastructure investments. The project management body of knowledge didn’t always translate directly to the work I was doing at NSF, but it was a fun challenge to try to apply private-sector portfolio management practices to those of a funding agency.  I’m now trying to apply those skills to aspects of research development, especially when it comes to reorganizing our Office of Research Administration for scalability and providing strategic planning and oversight for our multidisciplinary research and engagement centers.

Although I am able to apply a lot of what I learned at NSF to my current job, I am still on a very steep learning curve. Fortunately for me, our Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation pointed me to NORDP during my first month on the job. I have relied on the resources found on the NORDP website and on the regional NORDP listserv to help me get up to speed and connect with new colleagues. This will be my first NORDP conference, and I’m particularly looking forward to networking with other research development professionals and learning about strategies for promoting and sustaining a research culture of inclusive excellence and team science.

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We hope to see you at the Conference, which will be held May 7-9, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, VA.  For more information about the conference program or to register, visit http://www.nordp.org/conferences. Follow @NORDP_official on Twitter for all the latest #NORDP2018 updates.

NORDP fosters a culture of inclusive excellence by actively promoting and supporting diversity, inclusion and equity in all its forms to expand our worldview, enrich our work, and elevate our profession.