Conference Cameo: Lisa Youngentob

#NORDP2019 starts Monday, April 29, in Providence, RI. Keep checking back here at the blog and on our Twitter feed (@NORDP_official) for conference updates. Register at https://www.nordp.org/conferences.

Who: Lisa Youngentob, Director-Research Development
Where: University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), Memphis, TN
Number of years in research development: 3.5 years
Length of NORDP membership: 2 years
Number of NORDP conferences attended: 1

I worked in the lab as a lab manager for 30 years at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. I left the lab and moved to administration when I relocated to UTHSC to become the director of the newly created Office of Research Development.

The biggest part of my job is managing our ever-growing collaborative seed grant program (CORNET Awards), which stimulates innovative, interdisciplinary, team-based research. In 2016, we started with a cross-college collaborative, and from there, the CORNETs have grown to include collaborations between regional universities, the UT system, industry, and international universities. We have run competitions focused on cancer, health disparities, regenerative medicine, and substance abuse, to name a few. This program is very competitive and incredibly popular with the faculty here at UTHSC. My office of two also runs all of the limited submission competitions and two internal bridge funding mechanisms, provides funding opportunities to our faculty, and organizes on and off-campus symposiums and workshops.

Last year was my first year attending the NORDP conference, and I was overwhelmed by the collaborative nature of the members! Everybody was incredibly helpful, ready to offer advice, ideas, templates, you name it! I’ve been to a lot of scientific conferences over the years, but this conference had a very different feel…so welcoming…the camaraderie was palpable.

I found creating a schedule was absolutely necessary to get the most out of the conference.  I was busy from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day of the conference! I also printed out the cameos of highlighted NORDP members that were doing work similar to mine and sought them out at the conference. I especially enjoyed the poster session, where you could pick up a lot of information in small, manageable bites. My best advice is don’t be shy, take full advantage of everything the conference has to offer, and network, network, network!

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We hope to see you at the Conference, which will be held April 29 – May 1, 2019, at the Omni Providence Hotel in Providence, RI. 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 #NORDP2019 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.