Brenda Kavanaugh is Assistant Director in the Office of Research and Project Administration at the University of Rochester. Brenda’s career in Research Administration began when she accepted a position as Administrative Assistant to the Program Manager of the University of Rochester Clinical Trials Coordination Center (CTCC). Coordinating clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies in the areas of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, the CTCC had just been awarded its second multi-site, federally sponsored clinical trial. In a short period of time, Brenda was managing the financial activities of the entire CTCC, using a home grown “shadow system”.
After 2 years, ready for a greater challenge, Brenda accepted the position of Administrator of one of 25 federally funded Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (ADC). Her responsibilities in this role included both pre-award and post-award for the ADC, for several R01’s, an institutional training grant (T32), and several foundation grants including a Pioneer award, given to only one institution per year by the Alzheimer’s Association. Brenda also worked on fund raising for Alzheimer’s Research with a former director of the National Institute on Aging’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center program.
In 1998, the University of Rochester broke ground for its Aab Institute for Biomedical Research, a state of the art biomedical research facility being constructed to serve as home to five biomedical research centers. Brenda was selected in May of 1998 to serve as Center Administrator for the Center for Aging and Developmental Biology (CADB) which occupied the entire first floor of the Institute. Neuroscientists were recruited from all over the world to serve as faculty in the CADB. Brenda not only managed the physical move of the faculty and their labs to the Center but also assisted them with the transfer of their active funding to the University of Rochester. In addition to the pre and post award activities Brenda was experienced in, her Center Administrator role required other Departmental Administration duties. She was responsible for everything from immigration issues, to capital equipment and space inventories, to payroll and human capital management. In addition to her administrative staff, she supervised the Neuroscience Graduate Program Coordinator as well as the Editor of a national scientific journal. When the Center Director was named as Senior Associate Dean for Basic Research, Brenda assumed the administrative duties required by the Dean’s office including managing institutional bridging funds and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute award. In 2003, Brenda was promoted to Research Program Manager and assumed administrative responsibility for a second center, the Center for Human Genetics and Molecular Pediatric Disease.
Ready for a change, in 2005, Brenda left Departmental Administration to take her current position in the Office of Research and Project Administration, the central pre-award office at the University of Rochester. Her years of experience as a Departmental Administrator enable her to see things from the Department’s perspective, an ability her departments repeatedly acknowledge her for. In addition to the normal responsibilities of a pre-award office, Brenda is responsible for the development of Small Business Subcontracting Plans and subsequent reporting for the University of Rochester, a requirement for federal contracts. She serves as faculty for the University’s CLASP (Continuous Learning for Adminstrator’s of Sponsored Programs) certification program for department administrative staff .
Brenda has been a member of NCURA since 1995. She has served as Treasurer for Region II and is currently a geographically elected NCURA Board of Trustees member. As a member of the Program Planning Committee for Region II’s annual meeting and FRA, she has played an active role in the selection of speakers and sessions for these events. She has presented sessions and served as a moderator and discussion group leader for NCURA meetings at both the regional and national level. Brenda is excited about serving as a faculty member for the NCURA Departmental Research Administrator Workshops and believes her many years of experience as a Department Administrator will be an asset to the program.
