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ORSP Realignment Progress - Leadership Updates

April 9, 2024

ORSP is pleased to announce the following leadership appointments at ORSP.  Both Karen Alameddine and Emily Baxter will report to Andrea Anderson, Executive Director, Sponsored Projects. Join us in congratulating ORSP as they take on these newly expanded roles and responsibilities. Learn more about ORSP's realignment progress.

Karen Alameddine, BSA, CRA
Director, Proposals & Award Management		     Emily Baxter, BA, JD
Director, Contracts

Karen Alameddine was selected as ORSP’s new Director, Proposals and Award Management. She began in this role on March 12, 2024.

Karen brings her strong working relationships with colleagues throughout the University of Michigan to this position, along with her breadth of knowledge of federal regulations,
U-M policies and procedures, and ORSP business processes.

Prior to her career in research administration, Karen earned her BSA in Finance and held a leadership role managing multiple teams in the information technology field.

Karen has attained 11 years of research administration experience, working in both pre- and post-award roles. She began at the UM-Dearborn campus and after moving to ORSP in 2015, she progressively advanced to her most recent role as Managing Project Representative of the government sponsors and pre-award teams. Karen has worked on numerous committees and has led initiatives to streamline workflow and processes:

  • Co-chaired the committee to automate our post-award change request (ACR) processes for electronic approval routing and capturing required documentation,
  • Restructured the Government Team into Maize and Blue Teams to improve efficiency through specialization, and 
  • Participated on the team that developed and launched a Workload Benchmarking Survey to collect data from Big 10 universities to help justify our request for additional staff
   
Emily Baxter has been selected as the Director, Contracts for ORSP, effective April 1, 2024.

Emily was selected from a competitive interview pool of candidates from around the country. 

After graduating cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, Emily gained additional legal experience, ranging from her work as a law clerk for a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, and later as an associate attorney for a firm in southeast Michigan.

In 2013, Emily joined ORSP as an Assistant Project Representative and advanced to her most recent role as an Assistant Managing Project Representative of a segment of the private sponsors' team. In this role, Emily has been a highly engaged leader, mentor, and colleague:
  • Honing her skills as a contract negotiator, supervisor, and subject matter expert in several areas 
  • Working with both private and government sponsors in pre- and post-award work
  • Initiated a kata practice to develop internal guides and resource documents, expanding this to colleagues to continue it as a professional development and continuous improvement activity. 
  • Served on and contributed to committees within ORSP, OVPR, and U-M including ORSP’s diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) committee, OVPR COI and Export Controls Review Committee, and U-M’s Voices of the Staff
Posted on: Thursday, April 11, 2024 - 13:34