The Office of the Vice President for Research is pleased to offer the Research Development seminar series for WSU faculty, chairs & directors, postdoctoral trainees & graduate students, and administrators. Seminars are free but registration is required. Please click the RSVP button above to register.

The next Research Development Seminar, Equitable Engagement in Grantsmanship and Beyond, will be held on January 18, 2024 from 1 to 2:00 p.m. via Zoom. The guest presenter will be Elyse Aurbach, Ph.D., director for public engagement & research impacts at the University of Michigan.

Seminar Description: Funding mechanisms hosted by the National Science Foundation and other sources frequently require an impact component engagement with non-academic communities and groups. In this webinar, we will discuss tenets and practices of ethical, equitable engagement practices with different communities, with an eye towards building sustainable partnerships which can bolster grant applications. You can expect to learn and discuss:

• Objectives in engagement and impacts projects,
• Stages of a project plan, especially as it relates to what equity looks like in practice at different stages of a project’s lifecycle,
• The strengths and assets that you bring to a partnership,
• An introduction to equitable budgeting practices, and
• Publicly available resources that will support you in developing impacts plans.

Presenter Bio: As director for public engagement & research impacts in the University of Michigan’s Office of Research, Dr. Elyse Aurbach develops strategy and oversees a team to support university faculty in their public engagement efforts. Aurbach recently completed a Civic Science Fellowship with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, where she led a multi-institutional project to provide guidance to public research universities to better support engaged- and equity-oriented scholars and scholarship. Aurbach previously served as Public Engagement Lead with the Center for Academic Innovation, overseeing the center’s role in a Presidential strategic focus area on faculty public engagement. Aurbach’s background includes double-life as a scientist studying the neurobiological underpinnings of major depression and leading a number of projects to improve science communication and public engagement, including developing and teaching communication courses in person and online and Co-Bossing with Nerd Nite Ann Arbor, and co-founding and directing RELATE, a science communication and public engagement organization. Aurbach was a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a finalist for the AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science, an ARIS Fellow, and program lead for the ORIC program. She holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience.                            

Host: Rachel Wallace, Ph.D., assistant vice president for research development, Office of the Vice President for Research