Time: 9:00 am
Location: Microsoft Teams
Present: Ali Abedi (ex Officio), Viktorjia Bilic, Anne Kissack, Bonnie Klein-Tasman, Tory McCoy, Joshua Mersky, Emily Middleton, Kate Mollen (ex Officio), Kris O’Connor (ex Officio), Jacob Rammer, Marie Sandy, Troy Skwor, Melissa Tesch, Jerald Thomas, and Vipavee Thongpriway
Absent: Rhina Ghose and Bryan Porter (ex Officio)
Guests: Suzanne Boyd, Andrew Graettinger, Melody Harries, Kathleen Koch, Cindy Marifke, Jeremy Miner, Jeff Nytes, Michelle Schoenecker, and Melissa Spadanuda
- Tori McCoy called the meeting to order at 9:00 am.
- Minutes of December 17, 2025, meeting and the current meeting agenda were automatically approved.
- Updates from the Office of Research
Ali Abedi shared that proposal submissions have increased over the past six months (July to December 2025). He believes that submissions are the key to getting more awards.
Research expenditures have increased the past year and those numbers were submitted to the NSF Herd Survey.
The Office of Research Development is working on podcasts to promote faculty publications. This will serve as publicity for research to the general public and it will promote UWMs research to other researchers. - Discussion – IACUC, IRB, Institutional Biosafety Committee, and Radiation Safety Programs
Melody Harries provided an overview of these programs that are part of the Division of Finance and Administrative Affairs at UWM.
Some strengths of the Animal Care program are the staff, AAALAC accreditation, and having a full-time attending veterinarian. Some challenges are: aging facilities and equipment, student worker hiring and retention, and transporting cages between multiple locations.
A strength of the Biological Safety program is having a full-time Biosafety Officer who recently revamped the training program to align with the needs of UWM users and who has regional and national professional connections. Some challenges are: not having backup coverage and the expansion of biological use at UWM and generally nationwide.
Human Subjects Protection strengths are: knowledgeable and experienced staff and having collaborative relationships with other area IRBs. Some of their challenges are: managing the collaborative research and reliance agreements with other institutions and managing staff levels if submission levels would increase.
A strength of the Radiation Safety Program is having a detail-oriented Radiation Safety Officer who is very responsive to PI needs and requests. A challenge is finding support from people in the community with similar roles and finding training opportunities. - General Good and Welfare
None - Meeting adjourned at 9:35 am.