SRAI Award Recipients

Winning this award is the capstone of my 27 year career.  Being recognized by my peers is an enormous honor for which I am very grateful.  

I am honored, humbled, and grateful to SRAI and the membership for the incredible recognition of the Excellence Award. It’s an honor to be part of a community that values collaboration, innovation, and excellence. Being selected for the Excellence Award is a career highlight and exemplifies the hard work and dedication that I strive for each day as a research administrator. This award is a tangible acknowledgement of the daily work, investment in ourselves and our profession, and how we share our knowledge with our peers. I am proud to be part of SRAI and be in the company of the esteemed past recipients.

This award means a lot to me—it recognizes the contributions I've made to research administration through teaching, mentoring, and service, and also reflects the support and inspiration I’ve received from so many along the way. It’s a reminder of my commitment to growing our field and supporting others, while carrying forward SRAI’s mission to strengthen our profession and its future.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to SRAI for this incredible honor. I am genuinely humbled and profoundly appreciative to be awarded the Excellence Award. This recognition signifies the culmination of many years of diligent effort and unwavering commitment, and it stands as a testament to the resilience, ingenuity, and professionalism of all Research Administrators. I hope that this acknowledgment serves to inspire our colleagues within the field to persist in their pursuit of excellence each day. Once again, I am deeply grateful for this esteemed recognition, which holds considerable personal and professional significance.

Being selected as the recipient of the 2025 SRAI John Robinson Travel Scholarship is an incredible honor and truly humbling. This recognition affirms the efforts and dedication I have put into advancing research administration, and it motivates me to continue contributing meaningfully to the field. Receiving this award not only provides valuable support for my participation in the SRAI Annual Meeting but also opens new doors for learning, networking, and global collaboration. It reinforces my commitment to strengthening research support systems, especially within developing country contexts like mine. I am deeply grateful to the SRAI Awards Committee for believing in my potential. This opportunity allows me to connect with leading professionals, gain insights into best practices, and bring that knowledge back to benefit my institution and region. It is both a personal milestone and a professional responsibility I proudly accept.

Receiving this scholarship represents far more than financial assistance, it's a validation of my commitment to advancing research administration during one of the most challenging periods our field has faced. I am deeply grateful to SRAI for this honor. 

This scholarship not only makes my conference attendance possible despite current travel restrictions, but it also reinforces my confidence in pursuing innovative approaches to research support and faculty development in light of unprecedented uncertainty. 

I am humbled by this investment in my professional growth and energized by the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to SRAI's mission. The knowledge and connections I'll gain will extend far beyond my own development, impacting the researchers I serve and the broader community. I look forward to continuing my service to SRAI, as a speaker, instructor, Catalyst contributor, and more. Thank you for believing in my potential to make a difference.

Winning this award has shown me the power in my determination and execution. I am honored to be an award recipient because of the impact that I have not only on myself, but on my institution who I represent proudly.

Our team is honored to receive the Rod Rose Award this year from SRAI. We have known for years about the growing importance of team science for grant application competitiveness and the potential for greater scientific and societal impact. What was exciting to explore was the elevated and integral role that Research Administration and Research Development professionals can play in supporting faculty teams, not only at the time of proposal development but also earlier in the ideation process. We hope this approach, which is a new direction for many, can bring fresh energy to our collective work. We can collaborate with faculty who collaborate with each other and be a part of making the research enterprise grow.

The project on which our paper is based is an excellent example of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration and we are pleased to have this work recognized. Receiving the Rod Rose Award for an article meant to support and help develop the research administration community is truly an honor.

This award is a shared achievement, and I am proud to have been a part of the research team and this community that supports coaching, innovation, and collaboration. My contributions would not have been possible without Melanie Bauer's leadership and guidance. Thank you to the funding organization, program participants, reviewers, and colleagues who provided support and feedback throughout this project. 

I am honored and humbled to receive this award. Research Administration and Research Development are rapidly evolving areas, with many professionals continually developing their skills, services, and people-focused approaches to supporting the mission of advancing research. I hope our work encourages readers to consider the potential value of Team Science in support activities and adds to our shared professional toolbox.

I’m honoured to receive the 2025 Rod Rose Award for our collaborative article on research management. This recognition is deeply meaningful to me, as I work with research institutions in low- and middle-income countries where building strong research ecosystems is vital. Supporting and professionalizing research management in these contexts enables innovation, leadership, and locally driven solutions to global challenges. I’m grateful to SRAI, SARIMA, and all those who champion this field and the people behind it. Thank you to the colleagues who reviewed and selected our work, and to those whose contributions stood alongside ours. The fact that we are recognized in this way affirms the importance of investing in research management where it matters most.

Receiving this award is both an honour and a validation of our efforts to contribute to advancing RMA as a professional discipline. Working with my co-authors was an absolute joy. Individual perspectives blended into something far richer than any of us could have created alone. The rigorous peer-review process provided invaluable learning opportunities. Having our work selected by the Journal Editorial Board from many excellent submissions makes this recognition particularly meaningful. It also serves as encouragement to continue scholarship and advocacy in our field. We hope our contribution will inspire others to contribute to the growing body of literature that shapes and strengthens RMA as a profession. My sincere thanks go to SARIMA for its vision and commitment to the professionalisation of RMA, and to TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and WHO for supporting this work.

Research Management is both a universal environment within university services and a highly specialized field. The boundary-spanning role that Research Management plays acknowledges that professionalization encompasses both deep knowledge of that field and yet transversal competencies that create an ethos of care, unwavering ethics and emotional and cognitively higher-order conduct. This Award means a great deal to me in recognition of those professionals who inspire and lead us in this complex role, within a world of routine decisions, as well as grand challenges. This Award is humbly the Award for all those people-from administration to leadership who make research flourish, make universities more humane and supportive, while researchers navigate research settings that crucially call for critical minds to seek improvements and solutions.

As we said in our presentation, improvisation, like research administration, is a team sport. As such, I would be remiss if I didn’t start out by thanking my co-presenters, Mark Lucas and John Hedberg. These two truly brought the fun to education, and it was my honor to present with them. I would also like to thank my fellow SRAI members who took the chance to attend our session and explore the connection between improv and communication. I deeply appreciate your recognition.

I’m truly honored to receive this award! A sincere thank you to all the attendees—your engagement and interactions made the session incredibly rewarding. This recognition affirms to me the importance of giving back to our community by sharing experiences and knowledge, and that experiences, especially, come in all different forms. Educating and collaborating with others not only strengthens our profession but also inspires innovation. I’m grateful to be part of an organization that was able to connect me with such innovative co-presenters. The connections we build at our meetings and the resources we share are invaluable to Research Administration. Thank you again for this recognition, I’m exceptionally grateful. 

As we said in our presentation, improvisation, like research administration, is a team sport. As such, I would be remiss if I didn’t start out by thanking my co-presenters, Mark Lucas and John Hedberg. These two truly brought the fun to education, and it was my honor to present with them. I would also like to thank my fellow SRAI members who took the chance to attend our session and explore the connection between improv and communication. I deeply appreciate your recognition.

I am truly honored for this amazing recognition. I am grateful to SRAI for the opportunity to present, the supportive staff at SRAI, and for all those who attended my sessions. I am passionate in my commitment to build didactic training programs to educate, elevate, promote and foster the development of research administrators. Thank you for this amazing award! 

I am deeply honored to have received the Best Concurrent Session Award at the 2025 Research Administration Conference. I would like to express my sincere gratitude, along with that of Laurel Long, to SRAI members, attendees, and the Education and Professional Development Committee of the Society of Research Administrators International for this recognition.

Delivering the session “From Tension to Resolution: Key Strategies for Constructive Conflict Management” was both a privilege and a passion project. To know that it resonated so strongly with my peers is truly rewarding. I am especially grateful to those who attended and contributed to the conversation—your engagement and thoughtful evaluations made the session truly come alive.

This recognition affirms the importance of addressing conflict head-on with empathy, strategy, and skill—something we all encounter in our professional journeys. Thank you again for this incredible honor and your continued commitment to excellence in research administration education.
With appreciation,

The SRAI values and promotes continuous learning, growth, and development. It is an honor to be recognized for my contribution to this effort. I always enjoy interacting with SRAI members, and I sincerely appreciate this award.

SRAI helped me to discover that the "secretarial" position I thought I was hired for back in 1998 was actually a profession.  I have always loved to learn and once I discovered the breadth of knowledge that is required for the profession of Research Administration I have wanted to share what I have learned with others.  Twenty seven years later I am still loving the mutual education that comes from doing the research, developing the materials, and sharing them with an audience.  It means so much to me that SRAI has provided the venue on a national stage to continue this lifelong learning.  Being recognized by the Society is a capstone to my career and I am so very grateful.  

I am deeply honored to receive the designation of Distinguished Faculty, and I am excited to continue serving SRAI and research administration in this new capacity. Additionally, I would like to take a moment to thank my colleagues within SRAI and at my previous and current institutions. Without their support and generous sharing of knowledge and experience, I would not be where I am today.

Being recognized as a Distinguished Faculty member, as I enter the sunset of my professional career, makes it feel as though my journey is truly complete. A journey that would never have been possible without the love and support of my SRAI friends and colleagues. You know who you are. And I love you!

I enjoy teaching and sharing the knowledge with others that I have gained from working in our field. Being recognized for that work is humbling and I am truly honored to receive this designation of Distinguished Faculty. To be able to have my name said in the same way as others who have truly been pioneers in this work is exciting. I cannot wait to continue forging my own path as a Distinguished Faculty Member and continuing the contributions to our ever-growing body of work in research administration.