People

Jeffrey Silber has assumed the leadership of the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) as of April 1. This appointment is the first step toward a unified pre- and post-award operation that will improve service to faculty by merging the Office of Sponsored Programs and the Sponsored Funds Accounting departments into a new unit called Sponsored Program Services (SPS). This is a service delivery model used by many of Cornell's academic peers. In the short term, integration of these departments will improve sponsored programs support to faculty, staff and sponsors while reducing duplicative effort and gaining operational efficiencies. In the longer term, the new service organization will position Cornell to deliver new training and educational programs to the entire research administration enterprise. Silber has been the director for financial research administration. His new role will be in addition to these duties, and he will continue to report to Joanne DeStefano, vice president for financial affairs and university controller. SPS will maintain a line of accountability to the Office of the Vice Provost for Research on matters pertaining to research policy, including academic issues, nonfinancial compliance, technology transfer and economic development. Silber brings 20 years of research administration experience from the pre-, post-award and departmental perspective. In addition to his many years at Cornell, he has been active with research administration organizations at the regional and national levels.

April 7, 2005