As a result of the recommendations made by the visioning committee in 2022-2023, The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) has hired a full-time administrative coordinator, Melanie Stroud, and members/groups in the community may apply to "buy out" time. A goal of this position is to not only help PI's obtain administrative funding on grants by already having a person identified but to also offer assistance to those who are only awarded enough funds to pay "percentages" of admin support, e.g., 30%, as these part-time positions can be difficult to fill. Therefore, we hope to offer administrative support across multiple grants at a time.

Another goal of this position is to retain institutional knowledge of grant management by offering continual employment to one person rather than the current cycle of re-hiring every time a new grant is awarded. 

Melanie Stroud will be be able to assist with general program/grant administrative support tasks such as: budget and purchasing, website creation and maintenance, communications and advertisements, event planning, travel arrangements, coordinating outreach efforts, and more. The current pay rate is ~$53/hour based on a 35 hour work week for FY24 (this includes fringe). Note that the grant sponsor must allow admin costs and it must be included in the grant proposal no matter the request. If you are submitting a proposal and would like to include Melanie's position, please submit the form. We are happy provide budget estimates/calculations to aide in the preparation of the proposal.

Please note that the Institute’s ability to offer this support is not guaranteed beyond FY25 during which time this position must be fully funded by outside resources. Therefore, we will give preference to applications that offer long-term funding.

For more information, please contact the Institute's Senior Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu.