I have been a research management professional since 2007, when I took a one-year contract position while transitioning from a career as a librarian to a career as an editor. Eleven years later, I combine the skills of both in my role as Associate Director, Research Analytics and Reporting in Research Development at the University of Melbourne Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (MDHS). I have been a member of ARMS since 2010. I am committed to advocating for and promoting the value of the profession as an integral part of the success of research and have demonstrated my willingness to do so through active engagement in the Society and its activities.
Over my eleven years in the profession, I have observed and contributed to significant changes in research management, its widening scope and complexity. I now count many dozens of colleagues in my own institution and across the world also working in analytics, impact, reporting, data management and research business intelligence, with a wide range of skills far outside of the profession’s traditional core in grants administration. This has felt like a particularly rapid evolution in the last few years, and the widening of the scope of the profession presents a range of challenges and opportunities in governance and new stakeholder engagement, which is exciting. As someone working in this space, I am keen to be a voice for this evolving aspect of research management on the ARMS Board.
I have enjoyed actively engaging with research management societies (both ARMS and the National Council of University Research Administrators-NCURA, USA). For ARMS, I designed membership brochures as part of the Marketing and Communications committee in 2014-2015. For NCURA I currently create promotional images, materials and content for maintenance of the Region VIII website. I have also enjoyed working with colleagues to develop posters for presentation at ARMS conferences and at the INORMS conference last year. In 2018 I was part of the committee that organised a symposium to celebrate Research Administrator Day at the University of Melbourne, with more than 200 attendees celebrating what we contribute to the success of research at our institution.
Membership of ARMS has provided me with many and varied opportunities for professional growth since I attended my first conference in Hobart in 2008. I had the privilege of visiting the University of California (San Francisco) as an inaugural ARMS-NCURA Fellow in 2016, also representing ARMS at the NCURA Annual Meeting. In 2019-20 I formalised my professional commitment to research management by undertaking the ARMS Advanced Level Accreditation course.
If appointed as ARMS Secretary, I know I can be a valuable contributor. I feel that the benefits of the research management opportunities, challenges and experiences I have now equip me with relevant skills to support the ARMS Board.
