Month: September 2018

Office of Research Safety hires four employees

The Office of Research Safety has hired Laura He as lab safety specialist, Jeff Anthony as industrial hygienist, Chris Weber as chemical and lab safety manager, and Ayman Seliman as assistant radiation safety officer. 

Laura He earned a master’s degree in plant physiology from Shanxi Agricultural University in China and most recently worked as a lab specialist for the science department at Tricounty Technical College. She also has worked as a research associate at the Clemson University Department of Biological Sciences and as a research assistant for the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry.

Jeff Anthony is a graduate of Indiana University and served in the U.S. Air Force from 1998 to 2007. He currently serves as a chemical specialist, HAZMAT technician and unit safety officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He recently worked as an environmental analyst and explosive hazardous waste manager at Aerotek.

Chris Weber worked as senior scientist and chemical hygiene officer at Voxtel Inc. since 2015. He earned his master’s degree and PhD in chemistry from the University of Oregon, where he also worked as a postdoctoral researcher and laboratory safety officer. 

Ayman Seliman received a PhD in radiochemistry from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt in 2009 and returned to school to receive a master’s degree in environmental engineering and science from Clemson in 2016. He worked as a research associate with the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences since 2013.

The Office of Research Safety strives to promote a culture of safety, integrity and quality within the university research community. Along with the Office of Research Compliance, the Office of Research Safety works to facilitate university research, teaching and public service programs by providing oversight and coordination of research compliance and safety areas. 

Welcome back to campus! I hope you had a restful summer break and are settling into the busy pace of another successful semester at Clemson University.

With the rush of beginning a new semester now behind you, I hope you will take a look at several new services and resources the Division of Research has created over the summer to help advance your research and scholarship.

First, we have created a new R-Initiative funding program that will provide access, at no cost, to our core research facilities, including the Electron Microscope Facility, High Performance Computing, Light Imaging Facility, Godley-Snell Research Center, Micro Fabrication Facility and the Aquatic Animal Research Lab. These facilities offer cutting-edge technologies, high-end instrumentation, technical support and educational services.

This Clemson University Core Incentivized Access program is intended to help you build research data that will supplement a new grant proposal, while increasing your awareness of the core facilities available to you. The program is detailed in the Call for Proposals here.

Our various R-Initiative programs have aided numerous faculty research projects. We awarded nearly $2 million in R-Initiative program funding last fiscal year to support projects involving 67 faculty members from 27 departments. This summer, we awarded 23 Doctoral Dissertation Completion grants, another R-Initiative, to help students from 16 different programs complete their degrees. This is the second year the Division has awarded such grants. I appreciate and encourage everyone’s participation in these R-Initiative programs.

Secondly, we have completed an expansion at our Electron Microscope Facility to add state-of-the-art combined X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) equipment. This represents a significant investment and adds capability that has been highly sought by Clemson researchers working on advanced materials, bio-materials, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, digital and information technology and environmental projects, among other projects. Visit the EMF webpage for more information on this facility.

Third, we have compiled internal policies related to research into a new digital Research and Sponsored Activities Policy Manual that you can view online here. The document includes links to internal policies governing proposal development and submission and more. Please bookmark this page.

Fourth, the Office of Strategy and Analytics, with the aid of the Grants and Contracts Administration and Public Service and Agriculture, has developed a new Faculty Business Information Systems tool (FBIS) available here. FBIS allows Principle Investigators to see all of their associated Fund 20 projects, along with a snapshot of their budgets, actuals, project balances, and project life percent. The new FBIS tool preserves all the original site’s capabilities, including a list of user’s Fund 20 projects upon login, projects’ direct budget balances, and payroll and journal entry drill down capabilities. However, the navigation has been updated to be more simplistic and intuitive.

Fifth, we have posted the 2018-19 Research Reference Guide available here to recap our institutional research advancements and goals and to provide an introduction to each office within the Division of Research. The Reference Guide includes numerous links to important documents, resources and services that the Division provides to help increase your research activity.

I hope you will find these resources useful. We’re always working to improve our services to you. If you have any suggestions, please email vpr@clemson.edu.

Best wishes for a successful semester.

Go Tigers!

Tanju