May 28, 2021
RSP is pleased to announce Dr. Chris Sanford joins the office as Associate Vice President effective June 1st!
Dr. Christopher Sanford has a BS and PhD from the University of London and spent his early career at the Natural History Museum in London and American Museum of Natural History. His interdisciplinary research on fish feeding and swimming has revealed important information on how animals respond to challenging environments. Some of the broader impacts of his research extends into areas such as aquaculture, autonomous underwater robotic vehicles (ARV’s), and Biomimetics or Biologically Inspired Engineering Designs. This work has been supported by five NSF awards and the private sector. He has engaged postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students in his research of which approximately 80% are from underserved populations. He is also a dedicated educator having received awards for excellence in teaching.
He has spent three years as a rotating program officer in the Division of Biological Infrastructure at the National Science Foundation. He was responsible for three major programs, Instrument Development, Major Research Instrumentation and NeuroNex (Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience - Teams and Technology in response to the BRAIN initiative). He managed several aspects of the programs including, webinars, review and compliance, running panels, debriefs and spending plans, recommendations and closeout. He also assisted in other programs such as Big Data, the Graduate Research Fellowship Program and Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology. The interdisciplinary nature of his responsibilities resulted in many co-funding opportunities and highlights the overlapping activities and synergies that facilitate scientific discovery at the leading edge while advancing workforce development in STEM. He was also involved in numerous outreach activities to the community and interagency initiatives.
His leadership roles include oversight and Project Manager of large-scale projects including building renovations and new construction, organizing an international symposium on novel and interdisciplinary approaches to animal locomotion, and PI on three MRI awards for multi‑user research infrastructure. He has also served as Chair of a Department responsible for increasing research capacity within a rising R2 institution. He was also Chair of the R2 Research Roadmap committee of the College at his previous institution resulting in a significant increase in research proposal submissions and award success across a broad spectrum of research and educational activities.
Most recently he has served as Program Director at the National Science Foundation in a new, innovative Program, Convergence Accelerator in the Office of Integrative Activities focused on Team Science and Human Centered Design. This program is fundamentally different from traditional NSF programs in that it quickly moves research ideas from fundamental research in academic environments to where it has a national scale impact. Transition to practice and scale of impact are the hallmarks of this new program. He has also been responsible for overseeing the most recent solicitation for this program.
Working at a range of institutions and organizations has given him a broad perspective on building research capacity in a variety of settings that are aligned with national priorities.