14th Annual NORDP
Research Development Conference

Noon - 4:00 pm ET

WORKSHOP: Leading Complex Collaborations with Strategic Doing

Presenters: Jeff Agnoli, The Ohio State University; Liz Nilsen, Agile Strategy Lab and University of North Alabama; Sarah James, AtKisson Training Group

RD professionals routinely collaborate with individuals on research proposals or multidisciplinary teams. Are you interested in improving your facilitating skills? Would you like to learn how to use your convening power to build action-oriented collaborations that lead to accountability and measurable outcomes?

This four-hour workshop is an additional $100 for members/ $120 for nonmembers and is limited to 30 registrants. 

Noon - 2:00 pm ET

WORKSHOP: Finding Competitiveness in Proposal Ancillary Documents

Presenters: Emily Devereux and Rebecca Wessinger, University of South Carolina

Supplementary proposal documents are often put off till last minute in the proposal development process. As RD professionals, we can help PIs make these documents a competitive piece of their proposal to signal credibility and capacity for sponsor investment. Participants will work through interactive activities by identifying opportunities in and revising documents during the workshop. We will navigate roles of these documents across various agencies and go over ways to help PIs cut and expand to meet section requirements. The goal is to help RD professionals identify ways to make each of these documents count in the proposal review process.

This two-hour workshop is an additional $50 for members/ $70 for nonmembers and is limited to 30 registrants. 

2:00 - 4:00 pm ET

WORKSHOP: Video Marketing—the RD tool you didn’t know you needed

Presenters: Evangeline Coker and Mike Mitchell, Florida State University

Video communication should be a part of every RD professional’s toolbox. You don’t need fancy equipment or expensive software to create powerful and motivating content. Join us for a two-part hands-on intensive where you will develop, film, and edit your own advertising video!  Bring a laptop and your cell phone, and we’ll make a filmmaker out of you!

This two-hour workshop is an additional $50 for members/ $70 for nonmembers and is limited to 20 registrants.

NORDP Committee ROund-RObin

Take advantage of this annual opportunity to explore NORDP's various committees and find ways to engage more deeply in your association. Following brief presentations from each committee, attendees will have the opportunity to explore various committees via breakout rooms.

• Coffee Hour in the Lobby, hosted by the Member Services Committee
• New Member Meetup 

Opening Keynote: Susan Renoe, University of Missouri
Broader Impacts: A Strategy for Research Development

This presentation will focus on how the National Science Foundation (NSF) Broader Impacts criterion can be used as a strategy for research development. It will also include a brief overview of the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS), an NSF-funded center that focuses on building individual and institutional capacity for research impact and is home to a thriving community of practice with more than 1,200 members worldwide. It will highlight the ARIS-NORDP partnership that began last fall and explore an example of how universities is using broader impacts to support proposal development and expand societal impact. 

Concurrent Sessions 1

• Fostering Well-being: Perspectives for Mentors and Mentees
• Supporting Diverse and Inclusive Teams: New Tools for the CREDITS Community of Practice
• The Long Haul: Using Sustainability Plans to Guide Proposal Development
• Supporting Mid-Career Faculty through Research Leadership Training
• The Landscape of RD at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions v. 1.0

Concurrent Sessions 2

• Maximizing Your RD Talent
• From Strangers to Friends: When Tough Conversations Go Right
• Brokering Research-Practice Partnerships and Other Equity-Based Models: How RD Can Help Researchers Share the Power
• The Intersection of Research Development and Broader Impacts: Current Models and Future Directions 
• Inspiring Collaborative Conversations: How to Create a Good Framing Question

Concurrent Sessions 3

• A Room of Their Own: Writing Groups as Resilience Communities for Female Early-Career Faculty
• Coaching: A Valuable Capability in and for Research Development
• Proposal Development & Management Lightning Storm
• Using an Equity Audit to Assess Internal Research Award Programs
• The Untapped Potential of RD Professionals Transitioning from Postdoctoral Positions

Trivia Night: By popular demand trivia emcee Tim Fulton is back this year! Tim has been hosting trivia for organizations ranging from funeral home directors to contemporary art museums for over ten years. While you may not be able to match his knowledge of the Back to the Future trilogy, you’re sure to have a good time.

Coffee Hour in the Lobby, hosted by Member Services Committee

Concurrent Sessions 4

• What Counts as Success in Research Development at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions: A Discussion of Metrics
• Insane in the Brain – Time Management for RD Professionals
• #MentoringMatters Stories Across Research Development Professionals’ Career Span
• Reducing Stress and Preventing Burnout for Research Development Professionals
• The Power of Good Questions: Sharing Strengths-based Facilitation Skills

Mindfulness Break with Dr. Kelcey Stratton

Yoga Break with Jamie Leigh Hines

Plenary Session: Dr. Dyhia Belhabib, Nautical Crimes Investigations
Minority Researchers and Equity in the STEM Field

The scientist is a man who wears a white coat and works in a laboratory.” In a 1980s study that asked participants to draw a scientist, of over 5000 drawings, only 28 described female scientists, all drawn by girls. Almost 30 years later, studies still suggest that women in biology are still heavily discriminated against. It is not only a gender issue. The practice of othering is quite strongly reflected in the bias against minorities in STEM. This presentation explores professionalized white supremacy practices, bias against minorities, and how white privilege and/or elitism translate in a lack of inclusion of minorities in STEM. We will explore the needed spaces of discomfort and, and using the case of colonization in conservation, unlearn some normalized discriminatory practices that we all carry, in order to be more inclusive in STEM. 

Dr. Dyhia Belhabib is an environmental scientist and researcher specializing in crime, conservation, and technology. She is currently the principal fisheries investigator for Ecotrust Canada, and the Director and confounder of Nautical Crimes Investigation Services, where she develops ethical technologies to combat crime. Her research has investigated the knowledge frontier between maritime criminality, ethics, and inclusion, and explored the concept of conservation justice. She has also advocated for decolonization and greater equity in ocean science.

Sponsored by: 

Concurrent Sessions 5

• “We Need a Newsletter!” 
• Navigating a Career in Research Development Without a Doctorate
• Building and Leveraging Partnerships: How to Advance Research Information Management Systems (RIMS) to Catalyze Research
• Mentoring Lightning Storm
• Advancing Community-Engaged Scholarship: Where can RD Professionals Play a Role?         

Concurrent Sessions 6

• Exponential Networks — My Network is Your Network 
• Immigrant Knowledge and Wisdom: A Discussion on How Diverse Perspectives Benefit the Research Enterprise
• NSF: Opportunities to Grow an Inclusive Research Enterprise
• Increasing Use of NIH Diversity Supplements to Support Underrepresented Minority (URM) Trainees
• Program Officer Session: Defense EPSCoR

InfoReady's Wildlife Happy Hour
Ever had a drink accompanied by a hedgehog and a salamander? Join the InfoReady team for a fun-filled wildlife happy hour. The hedgehog and salamander will be accompanied by their caretaker, so you can learn about both animals and ask any questions you may have!

Artistic Meditation: Melissa Kowal, owner of the Beeble Art Center.

Kowal owns an artistic enrichment company called Beeble Art and was a public school art teacher for many years before starting her company after noticing that students had a sense of ease when they were in the art room. They would spend extra time in that room whenever they could and soon fellow teachers would start coming by room after school just to find peace in their day with a little paint. This fostered the idea that there aren’t many places all types of people can converse and create together in our world today. She started giving classes over zoom during the pandemic, and then started giving private lessons to people who were missing art in their lives.

Eventually, she started Beeble Art which created a gallery to help fund a local charity, designed an art studio with the community’s Recreation Center, and offered numerous art classes and parties all around New England. With this artistic enrichment company Kowal has the opportunity to teach art but more importantly she gets to teach people how to enrich themselves through the arts.  

This "Artistic Meditation" session focuses on the act of using art to relax your mind while keeping your hands busy. During our hour session we will use different drawing and breathing techniques in addition to learning how to create a “grounding tree.” 

Don’t worry if you're not a practicing artist, this is a course that uses art to relax, not to judge. This session will be filled with laughter, gratitude, and a new way to look at meditation.

Suggested Supplies: Four pieces of paper, a pencil, a black marker and coloring or painting supplies.

10:00- 10:55 am ET

Coffee Hour in the Lobby, hosted by Member Services Committee

11:00 am - Noon EDT

Concurrent Sessions 7

• Discussion of "Other Transactions" 
• NSF CAREER Mock Review Panels: Strategies for Success 
• Building a Framework for Making JEDI Principles Integral to Internal Grant Programs
• Courting Reluctant Faculty in the Creative Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities
• NSF: Overview of the Proposed TIP Directorate and Other Topics

12:15 am - 1:45 pm ET

NORDP Awards & Meet the Candidates

2:00 - 3:00 pm ET

Plenary Session: Sherilynn Black, Duke University with introductory comments by Alfred Mays, Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Examining Barriers and Identifying Solutions Towards Achieving Equity in STEM

As continued efforts are made to diversify the scientific workforce, significant work is required to examine the training environments, hiring practices, advancement opportunities and many other structural barriers that potentially diminish the success of all scientists. Each constituent group (e.g., faculty, staff, students, administrators, government officials) plays a critical role in shaping the behaviors and experiences that determine what it means to be a scientist and what it ‘feels’ like for different groups to belong to the scientific community. Research development professionals and other senior scientific positions are especially important in influencing this experience, as they are often longitudinally engaged in workplace environments and hold many unique roles in scientific departments and organizations. This talk will explore the ways that research development professionals can be empowered to engage in work to promote equity in their scientific environments, including understanding behaviors that must be modified to change policies and practices. We will also examine the ways that we process information and cognitive components that shape our beliefs and influence how we interact with our colleagues. Finally, the presentation will identify practical, easily adoptable steps that research development professionals can take to change systems and structures in scientific organizations. 

3:00 - 3:30 pm ET

Mindfulness Break with Dr. Kelcey Stratton

• Cohort-based Faculty Development Programs: Different Models and JEDI Intersectionality
• Unraveling the Mystery of NIH Diversity Supplements
• RD Smorgasbord Lightning Storm
• Onboarding New Employees in Research Development Offices

5:00 - 6:00 pm ET

Concurrent Sessions 9

• From Paralysis to Practice: Taking Small Steps that Lead to Meaningful Changes towards Equity
• Institutional Partnerships to Support Broader Impacts: What We’ve Learned
• Coaching, Consulting, Educating, and Mentoring: RD Professional Development Roles
• Research Corporation for Science Advancement Presentation

6:30- 7:30 pm ET

Escape the Basement! There's only one way out... will your team find it first? This interactive, team-based game will stick with you long after it ends. 

10:00- 10:55 am ET

Coffee Hour in the Lobby, hosted by Member Services Committee

11:00 a.m.- 12:15 pm ET

Plenary Session: Dr. Mica Estrada
Why Kindness is Important when Mentoring in an Interconnected World

There is an ongoing tension between breaking apart and coming together that happens at every level of the biosphere, including among people. The health of our relationships with each other depends on this negotiation of independence and connection, which can be impacted by our ancestry, cultures, family of origin, and personal experiences. With all this in mind, Dr. Estrada will describe the findings from her research program in which she has longitudinally tracked and examined what types of mentorship and supports are more likely to result in students persisting in STEM career pathways, particularly persons excluded because of ethnicity and race (PEERs).  Her research includes studies with first-generation, African American, Latino/a and Native scholars as they navigate their professional training.  Further, she will talk about how institutional policies and climate that support mentors in providing kindness cues that affirm social inclusion may impact the integration experience for historically underrepresented college students, faculty and administrators. 

Mica Estrada received her doctorate in Social Psychology from Harvard University and now is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco.  Her research program focuses on social influence, including the study of identity, values, kindness, well-being, and integrative education. Currently she is engaged in several longitudinal studies, which involve implementing and assessing interventions – such as science training programs, mentorship and curriculum changes -- aimed to increase student persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers (funded by NIH, NSF, and HHMI).  Dr. Estrada’s work focuses on ethnic populations that are historically underrepresented in higher education, most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and are providing diverse and creative solutions to the pressing challenges of our day. As a leading scholar on issues of diversity and inclusion, she serves on National Academies’ committees, was a Leadership Institute Fellow with the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) in 2013 and received the Adolphus Toliver Award for Outstanding Research in 2016.       

Sponsored by:           

12:30 - 1:30 pm ET

Concurrent Sessions 10

• Celebrating the NORDP/ARIS MOU: Leveraging Expertise between Research Development and Societal Impact Professionals
• Research Development Across the Career Span
• Have an Affinity for NORDP? Getting Involved with NORDP’S Thematic Affinity Groups
• INORMS Panel

1:45- 2:45 pm ET

NORDP Regional Meetings

3:00 - 4:00 pm ET

Concurrent Sessions 11 

• InfoReady
• Leadership Tools in RD (AtKisson Training Group)
• The Role of Open Science - What Are Publishers Doing to Promote Responsible Research (F1000)
• Connecting the Research Lifecycle with Linked Data (Digital Science)
• Managing Current & Pending (and Other) Support (InfoEd Global)