Month: December 2023

The November 2023 Career Stories featured Katie Lindl, Deputy Director, Program Development Support Office, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Dr. Katie Lindl has been at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for 5+ years working in the Program Development Support Office (also known as the “proposals” group or PDSO), first as a proposal manager and for the past year and a half as the group’s deputy director. She has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Princeton and completed a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. Together with the PDSO director, she heads a group of 12 people.

Calling this an accidental career, Dr. Lindl found her first job as a grant writer at a neuroscience start-up in Menlo Park through her rowing team, a sport she picked up during graduate school. Following her stint at this start-up, Katie took a break from research development and began work as a Pilates instructor and studio manager, hoping to have time for creative writing while also dabbling in freelance work in scientific editing. Once again chance pulled her back into research development when one of her Pilates clients found out about her science and science writing background and recruited her into the PDSO at LLNL. Currently, her day-day job includes proposal management and editing, training and mentoring, approving and assigning work that comes into the PDSO, and interacting with PIs and leadership at the Lab.

The diversity of work proposed across the lab keeps Dr. Lindl’s job interesting and exactly matches the breadth of work she had hoped to find when she finished graduate school, as she adds “During my time in graduate school, I realized that I’d rather help others communicate and improve their science than do my own research.” She is inspired by writing proposals for big science, having a very appreciative group of PIs, participating in training and growing her skills, as well as investing in and growing the careers of others. Two of her biggest sources of inspiration are her dad, a scientist, and her curiosity about people and the world around her.

Even though Dr. Lindl’s work is very rewarding, she knows research development work can be overwhelming at times and that people in our field of work tend to want to “take it all on.” Hence, her tip to the NORDP community is to learn to say no when needed.

Dr. Lindl continues to row regularly on a competitive masters team in Sacramento, CA; hike year-round with her overgrown puppy, Koda; ski in the winter; and teach Pilates, while splitting her time between her ranch in Livermore, CA in the San Francisco Bay Area and her place in Truckee near Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada. Her full-time remote work option at LLNL has allowed this lifestyle, for which she is grateful.

When asked if she had learned anything from her time in rowing that has helped her in her career in research development, Dr. Lindl noted that, yes, she learned that “You can’t win the race by yourself, but you can lose the race by yourself.” She has loved the connections she has made through NORDP and feels she has benefitted from learning the ways others do their RD work at their institutions and has shared these insights with her team at LLNL.

Dr. Lindl would love to answer any questions you have for her, so please feel free to email her at lindl2@llnl.gov. To listen to her full interview by the career/kindle team, please click on this link (you must log in as a NORDP member to access): MC LMS – NORDP LEAD presents: “Career Stories” – Katie Lindl – November 8, 2023

Who: Dr. Susan Ferrari, Assistant Dean and Director of Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations

Where: Grinnell College 

Number of Years Working in RD: 10 years

Length of NORDP Membership: 10 years

Entering the field 

Susan, who leads an office with a team of three, was hired into a grants office in 2013 for a research administration role. At a small institution, she’s worn many hats related to RD, corporate and foundation relations, and faculty development. Susan earned her PhD in biomedical sciences but credits her general nerdiness, including many years of Quiz Bowl competition, for providing a broad foundation of knowledge that enables her to work across disciplines. 

Throughout her career, Susan has championed faculty outreach and support, and she’s coordinated with other units to lead initiatives in these areas. Another common thread through her career is bringing people together, especially to support humanists and challenges related to those disciplines. 

The value of her NORDP membership became apparent when Susan realized how NORDP could support her in developing programing for faculty. She was especially inspired by members working in the liberal arts space, including Claudia Scholz (formerly of Trinity College and Spellman College, now at the University of Virginia School of Data Science) and Kendra Mingo (formerly of Willamette University, now at UC San Diego). 

Susan has been part of what is now a movement towards RD within liberal arts college research administration circles. Supporting faculty who teach many courses and who may not need to write books or win grants to earn tenure creates an all-carrots, no-sticks environment, presenting unique challenges and opportunities. 

Research Development work

Susan calls her work in RD ‘cradle to grave’; it includes everything from hands-on work with faculty and proposal preparation, both research and curricular grants, community-involved efforts, and communications. She works with everyone from artists to scientists.

Susan had been working with Communications on efforts to share information about faculty research (including improving internal communication about new faculty members’ research and teaching agendas), which grew into initiatives to rebuild community after the pandemic. Recently, she established a faculty writing group program, now in its second round, a huge success with 55 participants out of approximately 200 faculty!

During the pandemic, Susan conducted a study with 46 faculty interviews on research culture at Grinnell to assess needs and guide future efforts. This work identified key issues, such as loneliness and lack of community around research, interest in more discussion of the research process (not just products), and areas where particular demographics or disciplines were not being well-served by current institutional structures. Conducting the project and sharing the results across campus helped Susan build closer relationships with faculty members and inspired other partners to work with Susan’s team to address the issues identified in the study—for example, the Grinnell College Libraries has launched a weekly faculty-staff research series.

Susan’s study also helped her make an institutional case for the value of faculty research. In liberal arts colleges, research activity is generally valued for its benefit to the curriculum and student experience. However, Susan’s research indicates that further benefits exist. These include supporting faculty retention and well-being and providing faculty a sense of autonomy. Her research also indicates that these benefits are especially strong for minoritized individuals. Further, her work showed the benefits that faculty members derive from their research communities beyond the College. This work demonstrates that RD supports faculty and communities broadly and is much more than dollars at the door. 

Susan’s history with NORDP 

Susan joined NORDP in 2013 and became more active in 2018, inspired by great work from members in the liberal arts space.  Prior to becoming a board member, she engaged most with the PUI affinity group and the creative arts, social sciences and humanities (CASSH) group. 

Susan has also been involved with the NORD grant committee since receiving a grant in 2020 that supported a study of faculty members at liberal arts colleges who direct institutional grants that blend pedagogy and research. 

Susan went to her first conference in Providence (2019) as well as online conferences and gatherings, and she’s presented both in person and virtually on faculty programs at NORDP events. 

Motivation to run for the NORDP Board

Susan notes that it’s a challenging time to be in humanistic or qualitative social science fields because of a retreat from those fields by some of their traditional funders. She sees RD as part of what can address that challenge, so she promotes RD within her professional circles, including in her role as past president (2020-2022) of Colleges of Liberal Arts Sponsored Programs (CLASP), which supports grants professionals at over 300 primarily undergraduate institutions.

A large part of Susan’s motivation to run for the Board was driven by her desire to expand what people think about when they think of RD and by her enthusiasm around the cultivation of an RD community of practice at smaller institutions and for smaller efforts. This community of practice includes more diverse schools, minority-serving institutions, and emerging research institutions. It’s important to Susan that perspectives from those within this community are respected and honored, and she emphasizes that we can all learn from each other. The productive exchange of ideas and learning has been exemplified by the CASSH group. 

What Susan is most excited about as a new NORDP Board member

Susan is excited to get to work with people that she’s seen shaping NORDP in recent years. She’s excited about our new management company. She’s ready to tackle challenges related to declining funding and enrollments in the humanities and the near- and long-term impact of the SCOTUS decision. She acknowledges challenges but embraces them with enthusiasm. 

Susan remembers going to her first NORDP conference and knowing that she ‘found her people’. That was topped when she went to her second conference and first-time-participant friends from CLASP and other liberal arts colleagues told her that they found their people. Embracing connection, Susan is looking forward to continuing to bring more into the fold.