Get to know our team!

I started my University of Illinois career in March 2008, when SPA Post Award was called Grants and Contracts. After a little over three years at G&C I was approached to join the new Engineering Shared Business Center, and this is when my eyes were opened to proposal submissions. While at ESBC I worked with different engineering colleges who collaborated with faculty throughout the campus.  It was in 2014 that I received the call from NCSA to join their business office team and work solely on proposals. I found my niche working on proposals during these four years. While at NCSA I had the pleasure to work on many successful projects, meet many collaborators across campus as well as external to campus, and get to know many of the faculty affiliates. The School of Information Sciences, who I worked with frequently on joint collaborations, created a position that I could not pass up, and so I ended up as the Assistant Director of Research Services at the iSchool. In this role I managed and supported a team of grants and contracts professionals, project managers, and a research development coordinator. With the new growth of the iSchool it was an exciting time to watch the number of submissions almost quadruple and our research portfolio boom with successful awards.

Now here we are, 2022, and I am back at NCSA leading the new Proposal Development Office, eager to quadruple the number of submissions and increase our research portfolio, and I have just the team who can do that!

In my personal life I have five children with an age range of 9 to 27, and I have a beautiful granddaughter who has stolen my heart! I love attending all of the sports my kids are involved in, including basketball, soccer, volleyball, softball, and football.  I’m not sure I have much spare time, but I love spending time with my friends and family.

I started my career at UIUC in 2006 as the receptionist of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) where I was responsible for prox card access, inventory and supervising 3 students. A couple of years later, I moved into the lab building and started my extensive relationship with grant proposals. After four years of pre-award experience along with various tasks (PCard purchases, travel reimbursements, visitor itineraries & logistics, etc.) for faculty, staff and students; I was asked to join to the business office to take on proposal development for the entire IGB.

After 12 plus years at the IGB, I decided it was time for a change. I have been so happy to be a part of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) since January 2019. I love the team atmosphere and this dedicated, helpful group that is so innovative and is always changing the world for the better. I grew up in northern Illinois but have been in Champaign-Urbana for almost 16 years.  I met my husband (who is a saint and the Avett Bros Archivist creator of Long Story Short... on Patreon) playing co-rec softball and we have a two wonderfully intricate daughters.  Our oldest wants to be a baker, a fashion designer, and an astronaut.  She is also an avid Star Wars buff and a great big sister.  Our little one is a crazy lady but melts your heart with her smiles and all the love you see in her eyes for her big sis!

I enjoy baking, puzzles, running, yoga, traveling to much warmer places, love to play softball & volleyball and watch sports (March Madness, Patriots/Buccaneers). 

I’ve been told I’m extremely passionate about everything so I can only say that this guarantees your proposal is my top priority!

I’ve been on campus since 2005 in a variety of roles, beginning as an office support specialist and eventually becoming director of operations for a 16-university consortium of humanities centers across the Midwest. In that same time I also taught comparative and world religion at Parkland College for a decade, and also cohosted both the radio show Keepin' the Faith on WRFU Radio Free Urbana 104.5 FM and the podcast PhD Futures Now! for the Humanities Without Walls consortium.

I have a B.A. in religion and bio-cultural studies from Illinois Wesleyan University and an M.A. degree in Buddhist studies from The Naropa Institute (now Naropa University). Given my education and my variegated work experience and skill sets, I often describe myself as a “jack of all trades, master of Buddhist studies.”  

In my free time, I like to make to do lists; read books printed on paper; walk at Meadowbrook with my dog Pugglesworth; spend time with my kid, my parents, and my friends; garden; brew beer; listen to music; make music; journal; meditate; watch movies; make art; gather interesting things, ideas, friends; learn new stuff; and ponder meaningful coincidences. 

My responsibilities include:

• Creating and maintaining the PDO website