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SoE’s Research Support Office is now open
June 5, 2025 - Carly Bowling
The School of Engineering has officially launched its own Research Support Office to provide faculty with a centralized resource for help with research proposals, programmatic oversight and tasks related to purchasing, filing reports, booking travel, and financial analysis.
“It has the pre-proposal functions which faculty are very used to seeing help with, but also a lot of other functions such as administrative support and even some level of technical laboratory support and things of that nature,” Associate Dean for Research Steven Graves said.
Isela Balli, who has 26 years of experience in research administration and holds the foremost accreditation for the profession, will lead the Research Support Office as program operations director in close collaboration with Graves. Launched in January, the ultimate objective is that the office can offer direction or assistance for any research-related need, whether it be creating a proposal or establishing a new program.
“The goal is to support our faculty’s research holistically, from the cradle to the grave,” Balli said. “Faculty will focus on the research and we will make sure they have a program that runs smoothly.”
Faculty can request support for developing research proposals –– or simply provide the office notice of one they are working on –– by submitting an online form. Balli and Graves recommend reaching out to the Research Support Office as early as possible to ensure the team can help faculty work through the proposal and submit documents to the Office of Sponsored Research in plenty of time. Even when assistance will be provided at the department level, notice of proposals being submitted enables the School to plan more effectively.
“As soon as they have an inkling they may be submitting a proposal, we want to hear about it,” Balli said.
A financial analyst with the office will also be available to help faculty develop financial projections based on their technical research plans. Having the analyst on staff will allow every research team to access the same level of high-quality financial reporting.
While many tasks will remain in departments, the Research Support Office plans to establish clear, unified procedures and Smartsheet forms for purchasing and other administrative duties to help simplify procedures across the School.
The office will also pilot shared program management for a few complex projects in need of the service. By centralizing research administration and management, the School can retain and develop high-quality program managers and provide them with a long-term career path at the University rather than a series of temporary positions. The centralized approach will also create crucial checks and balances and support not always available to program managers working as teams of one.
Shared programmatic oversight will offer the School and its faculty a number of administrative benefits and protections. The new office will enable the tracking of research proposals and unified procedures for booking travel and making purchases. Research teams will have an easy time spending money effectively while following policies and procedures set by project sponsors and UNM.
While the office is open now with limited capacity, Graves and Balli expect it to be fully operational with financial reporting, research proposal support, chemical safety information and more by July 1. The Research Support Office is located in Room 2052 of the Centennial Engineering Center. For support on projects, faculty can email soeresearch@unm.edu or visit the website.