Meet the Staff of SUU’s SPARC Office

Posted: March 19, 2021 | Author: Southern Utah University | Read Time: 2 minutes

Meet the Staff of SPARCSouthern Utah University’s Sponsored Programs, Agreements, Research, and Contracts (SPARC) Office is the grants research administration office on campus. The office supports faculty and staff interested in pursuing outside funding to support their creative and scholarly research interests and activities, particularly when it involves experiential learning opportunities for SUU students. Outside funding may include local, state, and federal grants or other private foundation/organization grants, agreements, or contracts.

SPARC provides assistance from conceptual development and planning, to implementation and management of funded projects, to project closeout. Each member of the team helps with a different aspect of the project life cycle. Beginning with the pre-award team, the focus is on locating funding opportunities, assisting with project narrative and budget development, and finalizing forms for grant submission. Then the post-award team focuses on award acceptance and account set up, managing risk/compliance, and tracking the grant once funded through project closeout.

In fiscal year 2020, SUU received over 20 million dollars in awards that were supported and tracked by the SPARC Office. They currently have over 120 active awards through projects with 40 different faculty and staff members across campus.

Although the focus of the office is supporting faculty and staff through their research and public service endeavors, many of the projects also benefit SUU’s students including scholarships, internships, research opportunities, and receiving mentorship from professors. 

The SPARC team includes Sylvia Bradshaw (director), Carrie Childs (research administrator), Jenn Stewart (research administrator), Bobbie Ursin (research administrator), Katie Gomez (special projects coordinator), Lawrence Mbaki (pre-award liaison), Carson Brown (post-award liaison) and Marci May (grant accountant). Learn more about the SPARC team

To work with the SPARC Office, reach out to them via email or the contact form on the SPARC website.


Written in partnership with SUU's Staff Association
The Staff Association advocates for staff by representing and advancing their interests and recognizing the value of their contributions, involves staff by encouraging social, service, and professional engagement, unifying staff toward common goals that will advance the University’s mission and goals, and communicating with campus entities to ensure staff are aware of current information. Learn more about the Staff Association.

Tags: Staff SPARC

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