Who: Ms. Amy Gantt, Director of Strategic Research Development
Where: Tufts University
Number of Years Working in RD: 20 years
Length of NORDP Membership: 13 years
Entering the field
Amy earned her master’s degree in sociolinguistics from North Carolina State University, deciding not to pursue a PhD because, while she really enjoyed learning about linguistics, she didn’t envision a career in linguistics. She then spent about five years waiting tables and teaching in North Carolina, including at community colleges. About 20 years ago, she left North Carolina to move to Boston, still unsure about what she wanted to be when she grew up. In Boston, Amy started working as a freelancer for Tufts through a connection with Peg AtKission, who was leading the creation of research development services there. She thought that she would do this work for a little while until she figured out her career path. Well, 20 years and a couple of promotions later, and a lot of institutional change, she’s still in the field.
Her research development work
Amy’s team’s responsibilities have grown over the years to become quite broad. She and her team are responsible for very large federal proposals, and they partner with their corporate and foundation relations colleagues to work on very large foundation proposals. They are also responsible for helping junior faculty with their proposals, with a focus on NSF CAREER and other early-career awards. Amy oversees three seed funding programs that are managed by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, and she oversees limited submissions. Amy places a priority on developing partnerships, particularly with other institutions, although her team partners with industry as well. Amy’s team helps to develop research strategy for both individuals and for teams and for the institution itself. Her portfolio is very broad and, as a central office, covers the entire institution.
Amy notes that one thing that Tufts does very well is community-engaged and community-based participatory research, in line with Tufts’ emphasis on making an impact on society. Something she really enjoys is connecting fundamental science to impact and how it’s going to engage people. Her social science training has helped her to think through study design – things like ‘what variables are you controlling for’ and ‘what ways are you going to recruit?’ When hiring, she looks for people with very strong writing and communication skills, but just as important to her is a sense of curiosity. Amy enjoys diving into all different fields, thinking very deeply about what connections there are across them and what is unique to a specific field and about how she can leverage all of those different pieces.
Amy’s history with NORDP
Amy joined NORDP in 2011. She became aware of NORDP through her regional group (New England area), which was fairly new, and she believes that she was reached out to by them around that time. Through her interactions with the Region, she learned more about NORDP. The Northeast group has stayed close to her heart throughout the years, and she served as chair for the Region for a three-year term. During that time, she organized meetings and came to understand more about NORDP at the national level. As often as university finances allowed, she attended conferences. She recognizes the value of these events and alternates attendance among her team so as many people as possible have the chance to benefit from in-person attendance. Amy has presented posters and oral presentations on a wide range of topics at conferences over the years: She’s spoken on how to avoid saying ‘no’ in a resource-limited environment and how you can be really creative with a small staff and do a lot. She has also talked about her career path in RD, and she’s presented with colleagues on institutional engagement with corporations and where that fits into RD, particularly on the federal side.
Her motivation to run for the NORDP Board
Serving on the Board was not something on her radar, but Amy was nominated for a position. When this happened, she remembered how much she enjoyed and learned from being chair of NORDP Northeast, and she thought that this would be a really great way contribute at a time when there’s a lot of creativity in RD and excitement about RD ‘professionalizing’. She also recognized it would be an opportunity to expand her network and learn more about the Organization. Amy recognizes that there is much room for learning from one another, from figuring out new ways to do things that would increase efficiencies to improve competitiveness and leveraging each other’s strengths on the administrative and research sides of our institutions. She recognizes the value and importance of professionalizing the field without losing the creativity.
What Amy is most excited about as a new NORDP Board member
Amy is excited about many things! She really enjoys thinking strategically about making NORDP more inclusive, in terms of increasing the compositional diversity of our members, in making sure that we’re meeting the needs of our communities, and that the Organization is leveraging its strengths. It’s important to Amy that we are not burning out volunteers, that we offer programming that reaches the people that it needs to reach, and that we are supporting the growth of our industry. Amy also recognizes the importance of telling that story outside of the RD community. Something she has always loved about NORDP is that people are so helpful and collegial rather than competitive. She holds the value of community very dear. Amy supports the continuing expansion of RD, which includes bringing new people in. She’s excited about new people, new ideas, and keeping moving!
Amy’s very grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of NORDP leadership, and she’s grateful to the community that we’ve all collectively built around NORDP. She wants to ensure that we continue to have the same (or even better) support and environment for people who are coming into the field. Amy acknowledges that most people don’t grow up thinking ‘I want to be a research development professional’. She doesn’t necessarily want that to change, but she does want people to see that this is a fun career; it’s really satisfying and she wants to encourage people, if they’re so inclined, to become a research development professional.
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