Heather Clark - Assistant Vice President for Research Operations
Heather Clark leads all functional groups within Research Operations essential to allow ASU’s research & compliance activities to thrive; and include the Office of Research Integrity and Assurance (ORIA) and Office for Sponsored Research Administration (ORSPA). Her responsibilities encompass oversight and execution on all aspects of the grant cycle, contract management, and the research administration staff who facilitate faculty excellence in research across ASU’s footprint. Heather and team provide a myriad of administrative resources and expertise to the Vice President for Research, Research Leadership Team, and Principal investigators, enabling them to devote more of their valuable time to their research priorities.
In Fiscal Year 2022 alone, ASU submitted more than 3,500 funding proposals, resulting in more than $728 million in funding. ASU’s research enterprise continues to expand in scale and complexity to support projects in response to the big ongoing challenges the community faces, including Covid 19 and the declining water supply in the desert west. Heather strives to proactively implement strategies to streamline the operations and research infrastructure to ensure our faculty and researchers have the tools they need to succeed in their research.
Heather’s educational background includes a B.S. in Microbiology and a Masters in Business Administration. She has been working at ASU for over 15 years, after previously working in the private sector as a Project Manager with a Global Clinical Research Organization and as an Analytical Chemist & Microbiologist in a Pharma Company. Her passion for research was ignited as a student researcher at ASU and continues to sustain her as she leads her team to discover new approaches to research administration, providing a benchmark in the field.