ORA Welcomes Kimberly Croft

Kimberly Croft is our new Executive Director, Research Accounting and Cost Analysis. She was most recently at Pennsylvania Sate University serving as the Senior Director for Research Administration. Kimberly will oversee many areas of ORA operations, including effort reporting, service centers and the F&A negotiation. We are thrilled to welcome her to South Florida and our team!

Business Office Welcomes Frances Freire

Frances Freire is our new Director of Business Operations. Frances will support financial planning and analysis, operational and human resources activities, and help drive the achievement of short and long-term business objectives. A South Florida native, Frances holds a BBA degree from the University, and an MBA from FIU. She has held various position at the University in her 15-year career here, including her most recent role as Sr. Manager for Business Operations at the School of Communication. She and husband Alex are the proud parents of three young boys.

New Process in Research Compliance & Quality Assurance

We recently implemented process changes within Research Compliance and Quality Assurance. RCQA auditors now assist Principal Investigators and their study teams in the development and creation of specific and measurable Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) Plans whenever necessary.

Andrew Camden was recognized for his great work on the ORA Contracting team. A faculty member thanked Andrew for his work on a high profile project that required immediate attention, especially appreciating him for being detail-oriented and solution-focused. Thank you for your incredible support to our faculty!

Elizabeth Overstreet is the lead technical member of the Data Broker team, responsible for handling clinical data requests, whether research or  business/healthcare operations. Liz is an University alumna, with a B.S. in Marine Science and a M.S. in Applied Statistics from Depaul University. She is also an expert in R, a statistical programming language, C++ and Python, as well as well as holding various scuba diving certifications. Liz dealt with more than 700 data requests last calendar year. Despite this tremendous volume, she maintains a singular focus on precision and speed of response.

Shout out to Compliance Commitees Senior Regulatory Analyst, Lizzeth Meza, for her efforts and cleverness in guiding our investigators in the use of new Institutional Biosafety Committee protocol submission platform - BioRAFT!

Kudos to Pamela Capman from the Training Team for working on e-Prost training modules. Pam worked with members of the e-Prost team, specifically, Kanchan Sakhrani, to assemble a series of computer-based learning courses that will be required for individuals to have access to the eProst system at the University of Miami. Pam assisted with the design and development of the modules, as well as the voiceover. Thank you to Pam and all who helped launch this important compliance module!

Elizabeth (Liz) Gonzalez from the Training Team worked diligently updating the onboarding material for new hires in OVPRS. This summer Liz is scheduled to provide orientation to four new hires. Thank U, Liz!

The Human Subjects Research Office has continued to build in efficiencies wherever possible to include additional revisions to the Investigator Manual and website updates (inclusive of RNIs and ancillary information). We celebrate the team’s continued commitment and their hard work every day.

Special recognition to Brandon Strickland from Dr. Norma Kenyon. Thanks to his hard work and efforts despite system issues the DOD grant was submitted successfully. 

In the Clinical Research Management and Support Office (CRMSO), Alba Nelly Marin was promoted to the position of Manager, Clinical Research – Site Management. Katrina Guanche was promoted to the position of Project Management Coordinator.

Congratulations to Nickolas Burry on his promotion to Manager of the RIC Operations Team.