Leadership
Erin Adams
Vice Provost for Research and Senior Research Officer, Office of Research Joseph Regenstein Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Director, CASE
As Vice Provost for Research, Erin Adams provides strategic and comprehensive support to deans and faculty to enable ambitious campus-wide initiatives. She manages large-scale research infrastructure that undergirds the research enterprise, such as the University Research Administration (URA), the Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering (CASE), the Office of Research Safety (ORS), Research Computing Center (RCC), Office of Research Development (ORD), and the Schmidt Future Fellows.
Executive Assistant:
Aurora Parra
Phone: 773-834-4503
Email: aparra@uchicago.edu
Elbert S. Huang
Senior Advisor to the Vice Provost for Research, Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Director, Center for Chronic Disease Research an Policy (CDRP)
As Senior Advisor to the Vice Provost for Research, Elbert works to elevate the scope and scale of community-engaged research and position the University as a leader in developing, studying, and implementing evidence-based solutions to address the numerous social challenges facing cities. Elbert is a primary care doctor who studies clinical and healthcare policy issues at the intersection of diabetes, aging, and health economics. He established the University of Chicago Practice-Based Research Network and secured funding for the Chicago Chronic Condition Equity Network (C3EN), an NIH regional center for addressing multiple chronic diseases of health disparities. As part of C3EN, he is developing the Community-Based Research Network.
Contact:
ehuang@bsd.uchicago.edu
Leadership Team
Rachana Ananthakrishnan
Executive Director and Head of Products, Globus
Rachana Ananthakrishnan is Executive Director & Head of Products at the University of Chicago, and has a Joint Staff Appointment at Argonne National Laboratory. In her role at the university, she leads the Globus (www.globus.org) department, which delivers a research IT platform to national and international research institutions. She currently serves on the Internet2 InCommon Steering Committee, Earth System Grid Federation Executive Committee and Scientific Advisory Board for National Microbiome Data Collaborative.
Her work is focused on cyberinfrastructure for enabling research across a variety of domains, and she has led security and data management for several NSF, DOE, and NIH funded initiatives. Rachana was a member of the Globus Toolkit engineering team and customer engagement teams, leading the efforts in web services and security technologies. Rachana received her MS in Computer Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.
rachana@globus.org
Stacy Brown
Director of Administration and Operations, Office of Research
Contact:
sfletcher@uchicago.edu
Patrick Osei-Owusu, Ph.D.
Associate Provost for Research Safety and Select Agent Responsible Official, Office of Research Safety
Patrick heads the University’s Office of Research Safety and serves as the Biological Safety Officer and Select Agent Alternate Responsible Official for the University. The office is charged with instilling a culture that focuses on the health and well-being of all University personnel engaged in research activities. He provides staff support to the Research Safety Policy Council and leads a Research Safety Leadership Team to assist in the development of standards and policies for review and approval. He also works closely with divisional research safety specialists, the University Environmental Health and Safety Office, the Animal Resources Center, and as appropriate, with Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Marine Biological Laboratory.
Contact:
poseiowusu@uchicago.edu
Michael Ludwig
Associate Vice President for Research Compliance, University Research Administration
Mike is responsible for monitoring upcoming changes to the research regulatory requirements and assuring that the University is addressing those requirements through advocacy and policy and process reviews. He provides support for research compliance concerns, including research misconduct allegations and conflict of interest management and oversight. He also serves as the business lead for the implementation of the grants module as part of the FST Project.
Contact:
mrludwig@uchicago.edu
Rebecca McNaughton
Executive Director, Office of Research Development
Rebecca manages the operations of the Office of Research Development and works closely with research leadership to cultivate research collaborations across the University and with national lab partners. She has extensive experience in both research development and administration of complex research grants, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary scientific topics. She leads the proposal development functions within the office and provides comprehensive grantsmanship guidance toward creating competitive large-scale proposals.
Prior to UChicago, Rebecca worked at Northwestern University in research development roles for the Office for Research Development, the Micro and Nanomechanics Laboratory, and the International Institute for Nanotechnology. She has co-authored over 25 scientific publications, and earned a PhD in chemistry and BS in chemistry, with minors in math, physics, and computer science. She began her career in academia as an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University studying bioinorganic catalysis and spectroscopy.
Contact:
rebeccamc@uchicago.edu
Jennifer A. Ponting
Associate Vice President for Research Administration and Director, University Research Administration
As the AVP for Research Administration, Jennifer oversees a diverse portfolio and provides leadership for research administration services, including award management, research finance, contracting, conflict of interest, and related regulatory and sponsor requirements. She also drives collaborative initiatives to improve research administration business processes and service levels in support of the University’s mission of research and academic excellence.
Jennifer joined the University in September 2019 as Executive Director of Sponsored Programs for URA, where she led the University’s responses to changes in federal sponsor requirements regarding international collaborations and directed the campus-wide implementation of the AURA Agreements system.
Contact:
ponting@uchicago.edu
H. Birali Runesha
Associate Vice President for Research Computing and Director of the Research Computing Center
As Director of Research Computing for the University of Chicago, Birali provides leadership and vision for advancing all aspects of research computing strategies at the University. He is responsible for the design, configuration, and administration of centrally managed High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems and related services across the University. His team provides advanced technical expertise, user support, advice and training and access to the University’s high performance computing facility to the research community.
Contact:
runesha@uchicago.edu
Elena Zinchenko
Assistant Provost for Research, Office of Research
As Assistant Provost for Research, Elena leads strategic planning and implementation of major research initiatives in the Office of Research and across Divisions. Additionally, Elena oversees Research Development Support which identifies and develops large-scale federal funding opportunities and provides comprehensive proposal development support, as well as seed funding for early-stage research. Her other responsibilities include the development of institutional analytics, benchmarking and projections for federal and corporate funding, and the metrics for broader impacts of research.
She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at the Booth School of Business. She has conducted brain-imaging and behavioral research and received her doctorate from Harvard University and post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Chicago.
Contact:
elenaz@uchicago.edu