Our mission is to advance UCSB faculty research by facilitating access to extramural funding – contracts, grants, and awards. The environment in which faculty seek research support has never been at once so diverse and so competitive. At RD we work to make sure that faculty have available all the tools for success – from funding source information, proposal review, and writing workshops – to mock panel reviews and site visit preparation for strategic Campus initiatives. By anticipating recurring solicitations, we alert faculty to upcoming major collaborative opportunities requiring significant advance planning.
Our staff is on-call, when needed, to provide our best advice and resource materials, including sample proposals and funding databases. We provide agency- and foundation- specific information that can greatly simplify matching faculty research goals to the most receptive funding source, as well as helping formulate a proposal that speaks to that particular review process.
Barbara Endemaño Walker has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Geography from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Anthropology and African Studies from UCLA. She concurrently serves as the Director of Research Development and the Special Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor for Diversity Initiatives at UCSB. Prior to joining the Office of Research, she was an NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology and the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) at UCSB. Her research and publications focus on the political ecology of marine resources, gender and the environment, and broadening participation in higher education and STEM, and she has conducted field work in Ghana, French Polynesia, Mexico, and California. She has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, NOAA Sea Grant, the Social Science Research Council, and the Department of Education, among others. She was a founding board member of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP), and she currently leads the Center for Research, Excellence, and Diversity in Team Science (https://oru.research.ucsb.edu/teamscience/). She is also co-author of the book Funding Your Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Practical Guide to Grant and Fellowship Proposals (Routledge 2017).
Contact for: social science, humanistic social science, education, and interdisciplinary research; consulting on conceptualizing, developing, and refining proposals for extramural funding; facilitating research team development and building capacity for effective and competitive teams; presenting workshops and seminars on various research and proposal writing topics;facilitating interactions between faculty and agency program directors; new faculty orientation; and assistance with long term strategic planning and career mentoring.
Brandon Fastman holds a Ph.D. in English from UC Santa Barbara where he taught in the English Department and Writing Program, and worked as an editor at the NEH-supported Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Prior to joining the Office of Research, Fastman served as Education and Outreach Coordinator at a national NSF center that supported research in the social sciences and humanities. There, at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, he ran an interdisciplinary education program and organized public events. Along with his experience in academia, Fastman has a background in journalism and still freelances occasionally. He has won two first place awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for his education and environmental reporting.
Contact for: Proposal Review for the Humanities, Fine Arts, and Education, Funding Consultation, Sample Proposals, Workshops
Maria received Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from UCSB and in Electrical Engineering from the Universita’ degli Studi di Padova. She has over 15 years of experience in experimental research in the fields of microfluidics and systems theory. Her research interests include modeling and control of large arrays of MEMS structures, design and testing of novel micro and nanofluidic systems for bioanalytical and energy applications and ethnographic research on learning and identity development within STEM workforce programs. Maria has published over 40 refereed articles and served as PI on awards funded by the Army, ONR and NASA. Maria was VP of MEMS Development at Laxmi Therapeutic Devices and R&D Senior Engineer and Microsensor Systems Expert at SensorDynamics AG.
Contact for: Proposal Review for bio-engineering, bio-science and bio-technology research development needs, Mellichamp Initiatives, Funding Consultations, Sample Proposals, Workshop Requests, Limited Submissions, Collaborative Proposal Development (including Center and Training Grants), Junior Faculty Funding Opportunities
Andrea Stith received her doctorate in Biophysics from the University of Virginia, and her bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Delaware. She is a former AAAS/NSF Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Legislative Affairs, was a program officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a policy analyst at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Prior to joining UCSB, she served as assistant director for interdisciplinary education at the University of Colorado BioFrontiers Institute and as a research fellow at the Graduate School of Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. While in Shanghai, her research focused on national and institutional policies that impact the career prospects of postdoctoral researchers. She also studied science/technology and higher education policies as a German Chancellor Fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Her professional interests include graduate and postdoctoral education, facilitating interdisciplinary research, broadening participation in STEM, and the internationalization of science. She is on the board of American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is chair of board the Martha Mason Hill Memorial Foundation.
Contact for: Proposal Review for the Science and Engineering, Funding Consultations, Sample Proposals, Workshop Requests, Limited Submissions, Collaborative Proposal Development (including Center and Training Grants), Junior Faculty Funding Opportunities
Danielle Chandler has a PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before joining UCSB, Danielle worked for the Office of Proposal Development at the University of Illinois, specializing in the support of large, multi-disciplinary grant proposals. Prior to that, Danielle served as Associate Director for the Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics, an NIH-funded center at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois.
Contact for: Proposal Review for the Science and Engineering, Funding Consultation, Sample Proposals, Workshops, PROWESS summer workshop series for new faculty, Women in STEM
Kelly Pillsbury has her M.A. in Social Entrepreneurship and Change and B.A. in English, both from Pepperdine University. She worked for two years in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Pepperdine before moving to UCSB to join the Research Development Team.
Contact for: General Inquiries, Research at a Glance brochures, Pivot training, funding opportunities searches, Limited Submissions and Competition Space, RD Newsletters, Sample Proposals, Seminars Calendar, Undergraduate Research website & blog
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