Superfund Research Program

Administrative Core

Project Leader: Martyn T. Smith
Co-Investigator: Lisa Alvarez-Cohen
Grant Number: P42ES004705
Funding Period: 2000-2022

Project-Specific Links

Final Progress Reports

Year:   2016  2010  2005 

Overall goal

To provide a centralized staff to unify the research program under the Program Director's guidance and to facilitate the coordination of the research projects to fulfill the research, translation, and training goals of the grant.

What they have done

Minerva Reyes, Program Manager, provides oversight on all financial and compliance issues and prepares specialized financial budgets, activity reports, and projections for the Project and Core Leaders, counseling them as needed to ensure that they have sufficient resources to meet their specific aims. William Brockett, Business Manager, manages administrative support functions for the program and each project and core. He acts as liaison with Agency and University administrative personnel; assists the Program Director in coordinating the activities of the Projects and Cores; coordinates travel and arrangements for necessary Superfund staff and collaborator meetings; provides other logistical and support functions not covered by basic administrative support; and drafts, edits, and submits correspondence, reports, and responses to information requests. The Core provides day-to-day administrative assistance to the Director and Deputy Director, ensuring leadership continuity. The Core maintains an informational Web site, aggregating recent information and publications from the research projects and cores and archiving historical records.

The Core assisted in the planning and coordination of a presentation and discussion by Dr. Roel Vermeulen, a professor in molecular epidemiology at the University Medical Centre of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, entitled "How informative are human observational studies on the possible association between benzene and hematopoietic cancers?" The event on September 16, 2010, was attended by UCB SRP investigators and other University researchers. The Core also coordinated research review and strategic planning meetings for Program Investigators.

The Core coordinated travel arrangements for researchers, students, and trainees to attend scientific meetings and seminars related to SRP research. It provided planning and logistical support for UC Berkeley’s participation in the 2010 Superfund Annual Meeting, held November 10-12, organizing the participation of UC Berkeley’s investigators, students, and personnel. The Core also represented the program at Project Management sessions.

The Core provided budgetary coordination and implementation support to project and core Leaders, including expenditure and compliance issues for current year funding and for budget development for the upcoming year. It has also fulfilled its direct ongoing business administration duties for the program that are not included in basic administrative support such as (a) advising investigators on NIH and University-wide policies and ensuring compliance; (b) expediting personnel appointments and visa applications; (c) managing all SRP financial transactions from purchasing to contracts; (d) tracking expenditures and preparing bimonthly financial reports for the principal investigator and project leaders; and (e) managing development and submission of the annual update and progress reports for all six projects and five cores of the UC Berkeley SRP.