2024 Board Members
Dr. Mridul Gautam, Ph.D., Chair, Vice President of Research and Innovation; University of Nevada, Reno
As vice president for research and innovation and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, Dr. Mridul Gautam leads the articulation and implementation of a shared vision for developing world-class research and discovery, the careers and competitiveness of faculty, and the institution’s capacity as an R-1 university, as classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and denoting very high research activity.
Dr. Gautam is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, chair of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Coalition of EPSCoR/IDeA States, and a member of the National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable. He serves on additional boards and committees including the Executive Committee of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ Commission on Economic and Community Engagement. Dr. Gautam also serves as president of the Nevada Research and Innovation Corporation.
Dr. Gautam received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University (WVU) and his master’s in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is an internationally recognized researcher and expert in the area of heavy-duty mobile source exhaust emissions, aerosol sampling, and particulate matter measurement, characterization, and control. Prior to joining the University in 2013, he served as associate vice president for research at WVU as well as vice president for the WVU Research Corporation.
Dr. Marian G. McCord, Vice-Chair, Senior Vice Provost for Research, Economic Engagement, and Outreach; University of New Hampshire
Marian McCord joined UNH as Senior Vice Provost for Research, Economic Engagement and Outreach in February 2020. The University of New Hampshire is the flagship university of NH, and an R1 with approximately $190M in research expenditures, as well as home to NH’s land-, sea-, and space grants. The Office of Research, Economic Engagement, and Outreach comprises a staff of approximately 400, and in her role, Dr. McCord oversees all research administration, compliance, and development; environmental health and safety; NH Cooperative Extension; professional development and training; innovation and entrepreneurship; and outreach and engagement activities. Last year, over 2,000 businesses in NH were served by UNH’s cooperative extension program. McCord came to UNH from North Carolina State University, where she was a founding member of the Joint UNC/NCSU Department of Biomedical Engineering and served as Director of Global Health Initiatives in the Office of Global Engagement. Immediately prior to joining UNH, Dr. McCord was the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Natural Resources.
Dr. McCord serves as the state director for NH EPSCoR, providing vision and leadership in connecting UNH’s research infrastructure to building capacity in NH, and is currently the Secretary of the EPSCoR/IDEA Coalition Board. She participates on the APLU COR executive committee, and is co-chair of the Industry Research Working Group. Recently, Dr. McCord served on the NSF Future of EPSCoR Committee.
A biomedical engineer, McCord’s research focuses on health applications of textiles and biomaterials. She co-founded two startups based on her research: Katharos, Inc., which aims to provide phosphate filtration solutions for end-stage renal disease patients, and Vector Textiles, LLC, which produces textile-based vector protection for humans, plants and animals.
McCord received an M.S. in bioengineering and Ph.D. in textiles and polymer science from Clemson University. She received a Sc. B. in biomedical engineering from Brown University.
Dr. Mel Ustad, Treasurer, South Dakota EPSCoR Director
Dr. Mel Ustad is the South Dakota EPSCoR Director coordinating the state’s EPSCoR research activities. He has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on South Dakota’s NSF Track 1 projects since 2006. He served as Principal Investigator of the South Dakota Bioscience Commercialization Alliance Economic Development Administration i6 Challenge award and has led numerous multi state collaborative projects. He has served on the South Dakota Bio Tech Association Board of Directors since its establishment in 2006. Ustad served as Director of Commercialization for South Dakota’s Governor’s Office of Economic Development from 2004-2017. He served as Interim Vice President for Research at the University of South Dakota from 2001-2004.
Dr. Julie Jordan, Secretary, Vice President for Research at Mississippi State
Julie Jordan was named Mississippi State’s vice president for research and economic development, MSU President Mark E. Keenum announced Dec. 9.
Jordan served in the role on an interim basis since July 2019, providing leadership for the Office of Research and Economic Development, strategic vision for the university research enterprise, and administrative oversight of research centers and institutes.
A Columbus resident and MSU alumna, Jordan has served in multiple leadership roles at the land-grant university. From 2017-2019, she was associate vice president for international programs and executive director of MSU’s International Institute, where she worked to create and expand strategic global partnerships, as well as grow enrollment of international students. From 2010-2017, she was director of the Research and Curriculum Unit, where she oversaw a staff of 40 professionals working collaboratively with the Mississippi Department of Education to assess and shape K-12 education curricula and policy. Jordan earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MSU in industrial engineering and education technology, respectively, in addition to a doctorate in international development from the University of Southern Mississippi. She has over 30 years of experience as an educator, entrepreneur and administrator in various public and private sector positions. Throughout her career, she has worked to build positive relationships among people and organizations to produce positive outcomes and identify and develop talent to empower individuals to meet organizational and personal goals.
Parag Chitnis, Vice President of Research and Economic Development at the University of Wyoming
Parag Chitnis is the Vice President for Research and Economic Development which supports and facilitates the research efforts of UW’s faculty, staff, and students; directs the university’s research mission as a public research university; promotes the university’s research program with stakeholders; directs technology transfer and commercialization efforts for UW intellectual property; and facilitates synergies with Wyoming industry.
Chitnis has been a leader at NIFA since 2014, holding other positions including Acting Director; Deputy Director of Food Production and Sustainability; and Associate Director for Operations. The federal agency provides leadership and funding for programs that advance agriculture-related sciences. Notably, Chitnis oversaw the successful reestablishment of NIFA in Kansas City, Mo., after relocation of its 300-plus positions from Washington, D.C., in 2019.
In his most recent role, Chitnis has led and managed more than 70 NIFA programs with a total budget of nearly $2 billion annually. Among his many responsibilities, he enhanced funding opportunities for extension programs nationwide and led participation in interdisciplinary initiatives such as artificial intelligence. He led partnerships with land-grant universities as a liaison to agriculture experiment stations and cooperative extension services. He also was a leader in international collaborations in animal and plant health.
Before going to NIFA, Chitnis was the Director of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he also served as a Deputy Director and Program Director starting in 2002. Among his many accomplishments during that period, Chitnis led research grant programs in molecular and cellular systems and led initiatives in areas including synthetic biology and functional genomics at the interface of biology and other disciplines. He received the NSF Director’s Awards for Program Management Excellence, as well as for his diversity initiatives.
At Iowa State University (1996-2002), Chitnis was a full professor and associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology. Before that, he was an assistant professor in Kansas State University’s Division of Biology and Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station (1991-96). He taught a diverse array of courses at those institutions, from introductory biology for undergraduates to membrane biochemistry for advanced graduate students. His research in plant biochemistry, photosynthesis and proteomics was supported by over $4 million in research grants from many federal and private sources.
Chip Cole, Professor, Director of VT Space Grant
Bernard F. “Chip” Cole is Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Vermont (UVM). He previously held faculty appointments at Brown University (1993–1997) and at Dartmouth College (1997–2007), where he was Director of Biostatistics at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. At UVM, Cole served as dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences from 2009 to 2013, and as co-director of the Cancer Control and Population Health Sciences research program at the UVM Cancer Center from 2014 to 2019. Cole’s research focuses on statistical methods in biomedicine, with emphasis on applications to cancer clinical research and epidemiology. His work includes statistical models for quality-of-life-adjusted survival analysis in clinical trials and meta-analysis, methods for longitudinal data analysis in the presence of informative missing information, and the development of methods to ascertain complex treatment-covariate interactions in clinical trials. His applied research activities focus on cancer epidemiology and clinical oncology, including large-scale randomized treatment trials and chemoprevention trials. Cole is an active collaborating biostatistician at the UVM Cancer Center, the International Breast Cancer Study Group, and the National Center for PTSD within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. From 2013 to 2017, Cole served as a voting member of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In 2019, Cole became Director of the Vermont Space Grant Consortium and Vermont NASA EPSCoR, where he manages a wide range of programs that support STEM education and NASA-aligned research.
Colleen Fitzgerald, Vice President for Research at North Dakota State University
Colleen Fitzgerald, PhD, is the vice president for research and creative activity at North Dakota State University. Colleen brings rich experience to NDSU from her previous research and administrative leadership roles at public institutions of higher education and at the National Science Foundation. Her scholarly work has been in linguistics, supporting Native American language communities in their efforts to revitalize and document their languages. She has been recognized as a Fellow of both the Linguistic Society of the America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for those endeavors.
Colleen serves in leadership roles with community and professional organizations. Locally, this includes serving on the Board of Directors of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation. For the state, she holds a non-voting role for the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education’s Research and Governance Committee to bring her insight on the research enterprise to support statewide research efforts. She is also North Dakota’s designated representative to the Coalition of EPSCoR/DeA States. Nationally, she serves the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities as part of the Council of Research Executive Committee (Class of 2025). In this and all her efforts, Colleen strives to advance NDSU and the wellbeing of North Dakota citizens through local, state and national service, advocating for the state’s interests in research, innovation, creative activity, technology and economic development.
As vice president for research and creative activity, Colleen leverages NDSU’s strengths, resources and assets with state, federal and other opportunities to advance research and innovation at our university as well as for the state. She directs a portfolio that includes research development, strategic research initiatives, research operations and central core facilities, research integrity, compliance and security, sponsored programs, innovation and economic development and ND EPSCoR. She serves as the Principal Investigator/Project Director for the state’s NSF Track 1 Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) award, ND-ACES: New Discoveries in the Advanced Interface of Computation, Engineering, and Science.
Her portfolio also includes two non-profit entities that advance NDSU’s research and innovation mission, the NDSU Research Foundation and the NDSU Research and Technology Park. It also includes the jurisdictional efforts to build research capacity and infrastructure through the NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and state investments in ND EPSCoR.
Colleen brings a depth of experience to NDSU drawing from her varied experience in academia and the federal government. This includes a stint of four years at the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a program officer, directing the Documenting Endangered Languages Program, a joint funding partnership between four directorates at the NSF and two division at the National Endowment for the Humanities. While at NSF, she also served on two key initiatives for the Foundation, the Ten Big Ideas, one on broadening participation (diversity, equity and inclusion), NSF INCLUDES; and the second a convergence and transdisciplinary research initiative, Navigating the New Arctic. Colleen worked in Texas higher education from 2002-2021 at three different institutions, Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. The experience at the latter two Hispanic-serving institutions gives her more than a decade of experience working and supporting minority-serving institutions in both urban and rural environments.
Jennifer Fowler, Program Director, Arkansas NSF EPSCoR
In 2021, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) announced Jennifer Fowler as the new director of the Arkansas National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
Fowler served as the director of Education, Outreach, and Diversity for EPSCoR where she implemented a variety of programs and activities to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In this role, she was elected to a national council for her profession by the national EPSCoR community and served as an at-large member before being elected chair.
In her role, Fowler serves as the statewide program director of Arkansas NSF EPSCoR, and principal investigator for the current Track-1 project, Data Analytics that are Robust and Trusted (DART). She is primarily responsible for administering the $24 million research project and supporting more than 100 faculty and student researchers at colleges and universities across the state. She will also work with the program’s academic and industry partners to continue to build the state’s research infrastructure and economic competitiveness.
Fowler is an Arkansas native and a graduate of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Arkansas and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in molecular biosciences at Arkansas State University with an emphasis in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Her thesis research involves evaluating machine learning approaches to identify possible genetic markers for types of cancer. She also serves on the board for Girl Scouts – Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and the ASMSA Board of Ambassadors. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her family outdoors in our beautiful state.
Dr. Tanju Karanfil, Vice President for Research, Clemson University
Dr. Tanju Karanfil is the Vice President for Research and a Professor of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University. He is a registered professional engineer in South Carolina, a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, a Fellow of the International Water Association, and a principal member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Karanfil was appointed Vice President for Research in February 2016 to steer the university’s research strategy, working closely with faculty and staff at Clemson and with collaborators in industry and the community. Clemson joined the list of the nation’s top research universities as a Carnegie R1 university in 2016, a reflection of its growth in research expenditures across disciplines and increases to the number of doctorate degrees awarded and postdoctoral and non-faculty researchers on staff. Clemson’s performance across Carnegie’s metrics have improved under Dr. Karanfil’s leadership since receiving the R1 designation. Total research and development expenditures, for example, are at their highest levels of at least the past nine years at $237 million in 2021.
In addition to serving as Vice President for Research, Dr. Karanfil serves and represents Clemson University on several boards and committees, including SC Smart-State, SC EPSCoR, SCRA, Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), and Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). A licensed Professional Engineer and Fellow of the International Water Association, Dr. Karanfil currently maintains an active research portfolio, focusing on water quality and improvements to water, wastewater and hazardous waste treatment systems, and serves as a consultant to water and wastewater utilities.
Before becoming Vice President for Research, Dr. Karanfil served as chair of the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences department and later as associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.
Dr. Paul Layer, Vice President for Research at University of Alaska System
In May 2018, Dr. Paul W. Layer was appointed Vice President for Academics, Students & Research after serving in an interim role since November 2017. In that capacity, he oversees academic and research programs for the University of Alaska system, which has three accredited universities: UA Anchorage, UA Fairbanks and UA Southeast. In addition, he serves as the co-chair of the Alaska State Committee for Research.
Dr. Layer is also a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He served as department head/chair for the Department of Geology & Geophysics from 1995 to 2003, and then again in 2007. He also served as dean of UAF’s College of Natural Science & Mathematics from 2009 to 2017.
Dr. Layer has had a long affiliation with the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 1989, when he was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics and the Geophysical Institute. He was awarded tenure in 1994 and promoted to professor at UAF in 2000. He has published over 170 papers in his research areas of radiometric geochronology and tectonics, and built strong national and international collaborations in support of his research.
Dr. Layer received his BS in geology from Michigan State University, and his MS and PhD degrees in geophysics from Stanford University. He spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Department of Physics.
Dr. Shelley Lusetti, New Mexico INBRE Director
Shelley Lusetti, Ph.D. is the New Mexico INBRE Program Director and the Academic Department Head of Chemistry and Biochemistry at New Mexico State University. She is a Professor of Biochemistry, holding a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. in Biology from University of California-Santa Barbara.
Dr. Christopher T. Nomura, Vice President for Research at University of Idaho
Dr. Christopher T. Nomura is Vice President for Research and Economic Development and holds an academic appointment as Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Idaho. Prior to his current role at the University of Idaho, he served as the Vice President for Research and Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF). He received his BA in Biology with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he studied immunology and physiology of elephant seals, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology at The Pennsylvania State University for his research on cyanobacterial electron transport proteins and gene regulation. From 2001 to 2006, he worked in the internationally recognized Natural Polymer Chemistry laboratory of Prof. Dr. Yoshiharu Doi at the RIKEN Institute in Japan. Dr. Nomura has a multi-disciplinary research group whose interests span the fields of molecular microbiology, microbial physiology, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, protein engineering, biochemistry, synthetic chemistry, and polymer chemistry with a focus on understanding gene regulation in bacteria and producing sustainable materials. Throughout his academic career, he has published and co-authored more than 70 original articles in refereed scientific journals and book chapters and holds 4 U.S. Patents. While at SUNY, Dr. Nomura worked with researchers across the SUNY system through the SUNY Networks of Excellence to foster collaborations between SUNY faculty and industry partners.
Dr. Juliana Serafin, Director at West Virginia Science and Research Council
Juliana Serafin, Ph.D., joined the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission Science, Technology and Research (STaR) Division in February 2020, and is the West Virginia NSF EPSCoR Program Director. Serafin spent 19 years as a researcher in the Research & Development Technology Center at Union Carbide and The Dow Chemical Company in South Charleston, WV. She most recently worked as an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Charleston. Serafin earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at West Virginia University and both her master’s and doctorate degrees in physical chemistry from Harvard University.
Kenneth W. Sewell, Vice President for Research, Oklahoma State University
Kenneth Sewell joined Oklahoma State University as the Vice president for Research at Oklahoma State University in 2015. In this role, he is responsible for the policies, offices, service units, and affiliated entities that support and promote research, scholarship, creative artistry, technology transfer, and IP commercialization at OSU. As a member of OSU’s senior leadership team, Dr. Sewell actively engages with the president, provost, other vice presidents, and deans to ensure that research is supported, promoted, and integrated throughout the entire mission of the institution. In the context of public higher education, Dr. Sewell views research as the engine that drives all persons engaged in and with it—whether they are faculty researchers, students, community participants/partners, or societal consumers—to the vanguard of change, transformation, and progress. With this guiding philosophy, Dr. Sewell conceptualizes research as a vital catalyst: what faculty and students do today that was not yet conceived (let alone printed in a textbook) yesterday AND that will propel scientific, social, and economic progress into the future.
Dr. Sewell leads the technology transfer and licensing enterprise, and he works closely with the OSU Research Foundation (OSURF) which includes Cowboy Technologies—a commercialization and investment subsidiary designed to strategically facilitate transforming OSU-owned intellectual properties into start-up companies. In addition to providing investment resources to select companies and inventions, Cowboy Technologies delivers business development services and entrepreneurship training via a partnership with OSU’s NSF-funded I-Corps program.
In addition to his roles within OSU, Dr. Sewell is active in research leadership at the state and national levels. Within Oklahoma, he currently serves on a gubernatorial appointee on the Oklahoma State Research and Development (OSTRAD) Board, and on the Oklahoma EPSCoR State Advisory Committee. He held similar positions in Louisiana during his tenure at the University of New Orleans. Nationally, Dr. Sewell serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ Council on Research (COR), and on the EPSCoR Coalition Board.
Coming from the faculty ranks himself, Dr. Sewell is a staunch advocate for faculty researchers and the transforming power that research experiences can have on students. A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Sewell was trained within a scientist-practitioner framework that blends hard-nosed behavioral science research alongside professional competencies in the assessment, prevention, and treatment of psychopathology. He had many years of academic research, teaching, professional training/mentoring, and administrative experience before his move into university-level research leadership. His own research focused on posttraumatic stress, bereavement, personality assessment, and a variety of forensic psychology topics such as competency to stand trial, malingering, and factors affecting comprehension of Miranda rights. Dr. Sewell has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, in addition to several edited books, psychological tests, and test manuals.
Dr. Sewell received his B.S. from Kansas State University. He then received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Following a clinical internship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Sewell joined the faculty at the University of North Texas in 1991. In 2008, he entered central research leadership full time, first as associate vice president for research and then as interim vice president for research at UNT before moving to the University of New Orleans as the vice president for research and economic development as well as the executive director of the Graduate School. In 2015, Dr. Sewell joined the OSU team and moved to Stillwater with his wife, Beth, where they now make their home.
Douglas Wright, Vice Chair of Research at University of Kansas
Douglas Wright, Ph.D. is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Wright completed his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky and his postdoctoral studies at Washington University. He serves as a Professor and the Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Wright’s current research addresses diseases and conditions that alter peripheral sensation and pain. His laboratory uses mouse genetic models to explore the pathogenesis of nerve dysfunction and pain, as well as testing interventions through translational research in human patients suffering from peripheral nerve disease and pain.
Dr. Wright’s research is currently funded by grants from the NIH, and his work in diabetes complications has been recognized through the receipt of a KUMC Faculty Research Investigator Award and a Cure Award from the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Wright has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards, including the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence and the KUMC Excellence in Mentoring Award. Since 2010, Dr. Wright has led the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE), which supports research training and infrastructure at 10 Universities in Kansas and Oklahoma.