Project Summary (2012-2017)

The Administrative Core continues to function as the chief administrative unit of the Columbia University Superfund Research Program (SRP). In this capacity, the Administrative Core is responsible for the supervision, coordination, guidance and financial accountability of the entire SRP. The goals of the Core are:

1. to provide leadership to facilitate interactions and communication among investigators both at formal (e.g., meetings and seminars) and informal levels;
2. to foster interactions among Research Projects, Research Support Cores, the Research Translation Core, and the Community Engagement Core, and to facilitate the dissemination of information across these units and to the outside world, both domestically and abroad;
3. to supervise the utilization of the Research Support Core Facilities;
4. to coordinate the reviews of SRP activities by organizing an annual visit by the Columbia University SRP External Advisory Committee;
5. to coordinate SRP activities, including seminars, retreats, symposia, and the preparation of the annual progress report;
6. to ensure dissemination of findings and attendance at the annual overall SRP meeting; and
7. to manage the program's budget.

The Administrative Core continues to handle all financial aspects of the SRP and the component projects. The Core and the Columbia University SRP at large have been fortunate to be strongly supported by Institutional Support from the Mailman School of Public Health (MSPH) and from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), a component of the Earth Institute at Columbia. These institutions have provided full salary support for an Administrative Coordinator at MSPH and LDEO, and full salary support for a Bangladesh Project Director at Columbia.

As in the past, the Director and Associate Director work with investigators to develop new projects. In the past, some of this pilot work has translated into independent R01 grant support for ancillary projects that contribute to the overall mission of the NIEHS SRP program; these enable our Program to be exponentially greater than the sum of its parts.