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Research IT eRA Help Desk

Research IT Services in the Office of the Vice President for Research supports a wide array of services and is a key player in shaping the future of research at the University of Connecticut.

We have embarked on a bold initiative to modernize and boost our portfolio of software solutions in an effort to reduce the administrative burdens on our researchers and make it easier for them to access and monitor their research activity and information.

A full suite of enterprise applications will provide a template for grant proposal development, automate routing and allow for electronic submission to certain sponsors. In addition, it will provide functionality for awards management; human and animal subjects protocol development and review; financial conflict of interest disclosures; effort reporting and commitment management; and core facility management (research store).

eRA Help Desk

We have coined our initiative to modernize our Enterprise Research IT systems and automate research administration functions the electronic Research Administration, or eRA. We have created the eRA Help Desk to assist you with your questions and technical problems. The eRA Help Desk’s contact information is listed below.

eRA Help Desk

Telephone: 860-486-7944
Email: eRA-support@uconn.edu
Staffed 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM Weekdays

Self-Service Portal: https://it.research.uconn.edu/SelfService (secured with UConn NetID) Don’t know your NetID?

Research Misconduct Contacts

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Michael Centola, MHS, CIP	Associate Vice President for Research Integrity	860.205.3702	centola@uchc.edu
Meg Johnson, JD, CIP	Director, Conflicts of Interest and Research Integrity	959.262.4139	meg.johnson@uconn.edu

Research Development Contacts

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Matt Mroz, PhD	Manager of Research Development Services	860.486.6378	matthew.mroz@uconn.edu
Julie Schwager	Associate VP for Research Research Financial Services	860.679.7649	schwager@uchc.edu
Deanna Thibodeau	Director, Research Finance	860.679.6731	dthibodeau@uchc.edu

Export Control Contacts

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Bieu Tran	Export Control Officer	860.486.3994	bieu.tran@uconn.edu
Export Control	General Mailbox	860.486.3994	exportcontrol@uconn.edu

Animal Research Contacts

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Karen Moré, MS, CPIA	Director of Research Compliance	860.486.2459	karen.more@uconn.edu
Ramaswamy M. Chidambaram, DVM, PhD	Director, Center for Comparative Medicine	860.679.2731	clac@uchc.edu
Alison D. Pohl, MS, rLATg, CPIA	IACUC Administrator	860.679.4129	ooacc@uchc.edu

Environmental Health & Safety Contacts

Environmental Health & Safety
UConn Health
263 Farmington Avenue, MC 1514
Farmington, CT 06030-1514
860.679.2723

Name	Title	Phone	Email
Jessica Gunn	Associate Vice President	860.679.3781	jgunn@uchc.edu
Steven R. Jacobs	Director	860.679.2723	jacobs@uchc.edu
Robert Gottlieb	Chemical Safety Officer	860.679.3512	gottlieb@uchc.edu
Elizabeth Pokorski	Business Services Manager	860.679.2723	epokorski@uchc.edu
Lucy Piechowski	Administrative Program Coordinator	860.679.2250	piechowski@uchc.edu
Ryan Cawley	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist II	860.679.4638	rcawley@uchc.edu
Daniel Sasso	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist II	860.679.4062	sasso@uchc.edu
Robert Bush	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist I	860-679-4241	robush@uchc.edu
Thomas Costello	Environmental Health & Safety Specialist I	86-679-4703	thcostello@uchc.edu

OCTR Forms & Templates

Graph with Pencil and Numbers

Forms

Templates

SPARK Technology Commercialization Fund

NOTICE as of 5/05/2025: Due to the need to reserve funds for the recently announced EMERGE emergency funding program, all FY26 OVPR Internal Funding Programs are on hold for at least the first few months of the new fiscal year-we will provide updates as more information becomes available.

The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) SPARK Technology Commercialization Fund aims to support innovative proof-of-concept studies seeking to translate research discoveries into products, processes, and other commercial applications. We invite proposals from across all disciplines for projects related to commercialization activities. We are eager to identify and support UConn-developed inventions and technologies that address unmet needs and have potential for commercial application.

To learn more about the SPARK Technology Commercialization Fund, visit the OVPR Storrs site.

Our Team

Vice President

Pamir Alpay
Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Pamir Alpay is UConn’s vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He oversees the University’s $375 million research enterprise at the main campus in Storrs, the UConn Health campus in Farmington, the School of Law in Hartford, and the regional campuses across the state. He was appointed interim vice president following a successful tenure as executive director of the Innovation Partnership Building at UConn Tech Park, where he served as the University’s chief advocate for industry-informed research and prime liaison between the research community and government collaborators. In September 2023, President Radenka Maric announced that Dr. Alpay was the permanent Vice President. A professor of materials science & engineering and physics, Alpay was also the associate dean for research and industrial partnerships for the UConn School of Engineering.

Dr. Alpay is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering (CASE). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, ASM International, and the American Ceramic Society. Alpay’s research is at the intersection of materials science, condensed matter physics, and surface chemistry. He has over 200 peer-reviewed journal publications and conference proceedings, five invited book chapters, and a book on the physics of functionally graded smart materials.

He has raised more than $30 million for research and development from federal and state agencies and industry. Dr. Alpay is the PI of an $18 million interdisciplinary Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) contract dedicated to optimization of high value-added manufacturing technologies for aerospace components.

As executive director of the UConn Tech Park, Alpay established partnerships with industry, state government, and federal agencies and built several interdisciplinary research teams that successfully competed for large-scale funding. Since 2017, industry partners have invested more than $125 million for applied research at the Tech Park, corresponding to over $30 million per year in research and development funding. Alpay also established partnerships with small to medium-size regional businesses as part of core outreach efforts, critical to UConn’s mission of supporting economic growth in the state.

Alpay earned his B.S. and M.S. from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.

pamir.alpay@uconn.edu | 860.486.3621

Executive Assistant: Joanna Desjardin