Susanne Feret first joined BCORe in February 2020 as Interim Association Director in connection with Huron consulting Group’s effort to evaluate and strengthen research support within the College. She started her permanent role as Executive Director of BCORe in July 2020. She has been instrumental in supporting a dramatic growth in the amount of proposals being submitted and has brought a deep knowledge and understanding of the research priorities for a health sciences college.

Susanne is an energetic, data-oriented, customer-focused and hands-on research administrator and team leader. She has experience in the development, operations, and growth of multi-disciplinary grants, sponsored research initiatives, and clinical trials from inception to implementation and management. Her experience includes working in higher education, academic medical centers, integrated healthcare systems, centralized sponsored programs office, departments, research centers of excellence, pharmaceutical industry, and non-profit association. She is also a Certified Research Administrator with experience working on Federal (e.g., NIH, NSF, DOD, VA, AHRQ, HRSA), State, Industry, Foundation, Corporate, Community, Pilot and Seed Grants.

Tessa Dinnie joined BCORe in March 2021 is a Grants Administrator specializing in Pre-Award grant applications at Bouve College of Health Sciences. Prior to joining the Bouve community, Tessa worked as a Research Administrator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center managing pre and post award tasks. She enjoys collaborating with Principal Investigators to solve problems and put together robust applications for external sponsors like National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and foundations. She also enjoys working with Early Stage Investigators to secure funding for novel research ideas. Outside of work Tessa enjoys travelling, cooking, and watching bad reality TV.

Michelle Rose joined BCORe in July 2021 as a Senior Grant Administrator specializing in Pre-Award grant submissions. Her previous position with Stony Brook University’s Office of Sponsored Programs encompassed both pre- and post-award grant administration. As a grant administrator Michelle has handled federal prime and subaward applications (incl. NIH, NSF, DOD, NASA, DOJ, DOE), as well as foundational grant proposals. Prior to grant administration, Michelle held a position under the Director of Biomedical Anthropology at Binghamton University, managing several grant submissions and negotiations. She comes to Northeastern with 4 years of professional Grant Administration, and eight years working with and through the grant process. She feels her years working as a graduate research assistant at the departmental level through the grant writing process provides a researcher perspective which has helped her to manage how best to serve the academic community while facilitating grant funded research. Michelle has a BA in Anthropology, MS in Biomedical Anthropology and an MA in Biological Anthropology.

Scott Breiding joins BCORe as a Senior Grants Administrator, after having worked for over a decade in research administration. Scott began his career in research administration at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard having jumped head first into the busy period of applications and reporting related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He worked in that capacity for five years, supporting a myriad of scientific projects ranging from viral genomics to mammalian genetic sequencing. In 2013, Scott became a project manager for the Office of Academic Affairs at the Broad Institute. There he led efforts to provide support for the community of faculty, academic trainees, and staff scientists, planning career development programming and shepherding new initiatives. Following that, Scott returned to the Office of Sponsored Research to serve as an internal consultant where he developed a new process for subaward monitoring. He joined BCORe in July 2020 first as a Grants administrator (pre-award) and in March transferred to his current role as a Senior Grants Administrator (post-award and data management)

Scott is no stranger to the Northeastern community, having received a BA in History, a graduate certificate in project management, and Masters of Public Administration all from Northeastern University. He is very excited to now work at the institution where he’s spent his entire educational career. He currently lives in Somerville, MA where he is learning new ways to exercise indoors and writing a sci-fi novel.

George Balaconis joined BCORe as a Grants Manager and has worked on the post-award side of the BCORe since joining the team full time back in August of 2018. Prior to his arrival he had held part-time positions in the Pharmaceutical Sciences department, School of Pharmacy, Biology department and in Research Finance (NU RES). These positions, which began in late 2012, gave him a full knowledge of the grants management systems at NU and the relationships forged have been invaluable.

A life-long Husky, George has a BS in Business administration from NU, focused in Finance and Accounting. His co-op job led to a long stint at Gordon & Co., a stock brokerage firm specializing in stock and options trading. His position as COO managed the trading, compliance, sales and research departments of the firm. He coaches high school softball on a volunteer basis in the springtime. Loves sports with special fondness for golf and competitive sailing.

Jessica Parente is responsible for the awards portfolio of the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research (IHESJR).   She comes to us from Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, having served since 2008 as a Grants Manager and formerly Grants Coordinator in their Sponsored Programs Administration Office.  She holds a BS  in Business Administration and Management, and a Master of Public Health degree from Bay Path University.  Jessica is a grants management professional experienced in Pre-Award and Post Award grants administration. Experienced in providing direct professional support and guidance in the administration of grants, contracts and related funds to faculty and research team. She has always had a very strong interest and commitment in public health. Working closely with research professionals has allowed me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge in this field along with gaining a deeper appreciation and respect for professionals working hard every day to improve the lives of others. Her key strengths include – skilled problem-solver, customer service-oriented, critical thinker and conflict resolution, and is bilingual in Spanish.

Rosemary Roe joined BCORe in August 2021 as a Grants Administrator specializing in Post-Award Grants management. She recently served as a Grants Specialist overseeing pre and post award processes at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she managed a blended portfolio of federal and foundation funded projects (NIH/DoD/NASA). Rosemary also worked in the Office of Research Administration as a Sponsored Program Officer during her time at Ohio State. She enjoys assisting Principal Investigators in solving financial issues as well as collaborating with peers in order to successfully manage sponsor funds, while maintaining sponsor compliance. Rosemary earned a BS from Ohio University, and a Non-Profit Management Certificate from Columbus State Community College.

Gene Tunik has a BS in Physical Therapy (Northeastern University) and PhD in Neuroscience (Rutgers University). He is a tenured Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences and Associate Dean of Research and Innovation at the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. He directs the  Laboratory for Movement Neuroscience, where research focuses on studying cognitive-motor interactions in health and disease, as well as improving human-robot interactions. Approaches in the lab include virtual reality, non-invasive brain stimulation, physiological recording, and measurement of movement.

Neha Singh received her BA in Psychology from Hunter College, City University of New sYork, and Master of Science in Applied Statistics with a concentration in Biostatistics from DePaul University in Chicago. She previously served as a Biostatistician at Northwell Health, where she worked as a Statistician on various emergency medicine, Pathology and Pharmacy research projects. Neha served as a statistician on various clinical research projects to assist in sample size calculation, research study protocol submissions for IRB and data analysis. She is familiar with statistical software tools such as SAS, R, Python, G*Power, and GraphPad Prism, and is able to provide assistance with clinical trial designs, data management, data analysis, data visualization, power/sample size calculations, and related needs. She is excited to meet our faculty to learn about the various research programs at Bouvé, establish a biostatistics core at Bouvé, and liaising with the Tufts CTSI biostatistics network and global network at NU, to serve the biostatistical needs of the Bouvé research community.

Linda Tvrdy received her law degree from the George Washington University National Law Center and her PhD in U.S. History from Columbia University.  Linda is a lawyer, historian, founder and President of DaisyDebt.org, a social impact startup that utilizes tech for good by helping low-income consumers access their rights against third-party collectors. She has deep knowledge of the startup ecosystem as both an entrepreneur and an advisor to startup teams. She was a fellow with the Blue Ridge Labs Social Impact Tech Incubator, an entrepreneur in residence with the AARP Foundation, and a participant in the Aspen’s Institutes Refinery on Technology and the Legal Rights of Debtors. She has advised startup teams for the Dean’s Challenge Grant program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and for Princeton University’s Tiger Challenge. Linda deploys lean startup methodology that incorporates user/stakeholder research and design sprints to quickly develop an MVP that can be a process, policy, tool or product to improve people’s lives. She is passionate about supporting creative solutions that improve the quality of healthcare, and that increase the equitable distribution of healthcare services.

Melinda Laroco Boehm comes to us from the University of California, Merced where she led a centralized RD team to support faculty research strategy and grant-getting in 3 schools (Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts) and 2 organized research units (Health Sciences Research Institute and Sierra Nevada Research Institute). As an RD professional, Melinda has partnered with faculty on single-investigator and complex, multi-PI/multi-institution proposals from federal granting agencies (including NIH, NSF, NASA, USDA, DOD, and AFOSR) as well as numerous state agencies. She enjoys driving institutional growth through strategic grant-getting and assessing research landscape trends to distill actionable steps to meet collective goals. Melinda currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP) (2021-2024). She received her PhD in Medical Sociology (Case Western Reserve University ’14) where she received a nationally competitive Fellowship from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to focus on understanding senior public housing residents’ foodscape navigation and catechize issues surrounding elusive longer-term behavior changes of health interventions in Cleveland, Ohio.