Steering Committee
UNM Grand Challenges Steering Committee
Permanent members
President's representative
Terry Babbitt
President's Office
Chief Of Staff
Executive Vice President for HSC's representative
Melissa Romine
Executive Vice President for UNM Health Sciences' Office
Acting Chief of Staff
Interim Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Barbara Rodriguez, PhD
Vice President for Research
Ellen Fisher, PhD
Interim Vice Chancellor for Research, HSC
Hengameh Raissy, Pharm.D
Term members (10)
Faculty/main campus (1 required)
Melissa Emery-Thompson, PhD
Assistant Vice President for Research
Professor of Anthropology
Andrea Polli, PhD
Professor of Art
Faculty/HSC campus (1 required)
Prajakta Adsul, PhD, MBBS, MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Preventive Medicine
Faculty/branch campuses (1 required)
Tracy Lassiter, PhD
Associate Professor and Coordinator of Digital Learning, Department of English, Gallup Branch
Staff (1 required)
William Cooeyate
Associate Director, UNM-HSC Center for Native American Health
Andra Kiscaden
Sr. Business Manager, NM EPSCoR
Andrea Orzoff, PhD
Faculty Research Support Officer
Industry, government and community partners (2 required)
William Chapman
Research Fellow, Neuromorphic Computing, Sandia National Laboratories
Alex Roerick
Innovation Manager, UNM Rainforest Innovations
Student representative (1 required)
Erik Hatlestad
Undergraduate student, Biochemistry
Committee charge
- Provide feedback and recommendations on Grand Challenge (GC) initiatives, including requests for proposals (RFPs) and opportunities for additional team funding, student fellowship and/or training programs, and others;
- Monitor GC team progress and provide feedback, recommendations, and/or links to resources to the teams;
- Review and make recommendations on program applications; and
- Regularly attend GC public events.
