Name: Nicole Viverito
Position: Program Director, Proposal and Research Development
Office: Division of Research
Institution: Florida State University (FSU)
What attracted you to this work?
I have a background in health sciences as a researcher and my research program was affected by COVID-19. So I was looking for a way to apply the skills I had learned and help others with their research. I always enjoyed the role of Co-PI and co-author, so I saw Research Development (RD) as a way to be a perpetual collaborator. I also see RD as a way to make a bigger impact than as a researcher myself and work on a lot of different things.
What’s your favorite thing about your work?
In my position I specialize in supporting health and bioscience proposals. As such, at FSU I have been involved in a variety of different areas of research in these fields. Something special that attracted me to FSU in particular was the university’s new health initiative and building of an academic health center.
What’s a handy tool in your tool kit?
I use the database Academic Analytics to answer a number of inquiries. It helps to answer questions like “What faculty are working on this topic?”, “Who would be a good collaborator in this area?” and “Who would review a proposal in this space?” I can search for experts at FSU in different topics and also see their networks, who they’re working with, and also their research outputs in the topical space. We also use it for benchmarking the outputs of faculty at FSU as compared to those at other institutions working in a similar area. We can compare them on metrics like publications, grants, patents, and others.
What’s your wish for improving your work?
If I had the bandwidth I would be interested in getting more involved in training grants. As a graduate student and postdoc I was funded at each of those stages in part from a training grant. However, first we need better institutional research infrastructure to track student data to make us competitive for a grant program like that. We also need strong mentors who are willing to commit to such a program.
How could our organization take steps to improve?
One of the things we talked about last year at the conference was considering how we could get seed funding to promote collaborations across institutions. Questions around who pays for that funding, who administers it, and guidelines for applying were discussed. That would be one of the things I would love to figure out.
What role could you see playing someday in the Florida Alliance?
Keeping on the topic of a statewide seed funding program, I could see helping through the Interdisciplinary Collaboration Committee to help build interinstitutional and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Also, I would eventually like to be a mentor through the organization’s Mentoring Program. I would be interested in connecting on the topic of how we develop and advertise our services as well as with those who support health sciences around the state.