Her Story
About Geraldine
I came to the U.S. as a refugee from Liberia almost 36 years ago during a terrible civil war. I had just finished college with my undergrad in biology and really wanted to do research. When I arrived, I got hired in the accounts payable department at Boston University, and someone saw that my skill set could be used in the sponsorship office, which is how I stumbled into research administration 33 years ago. I've been in this field ever since, working through various roles including post-award grants administrator, and when they combined the post-award and pre-award offices, I worked on both aspects of research portfolio management. I spent 16 years as a grants manager at the School of Public Health, then consulted for a few years after COVID, worked at Brandeis University as an assistant director, and a colleague reached out to me about my current position 3 years ago. I'm a jack-of-all-trades who handles the full cycle of research administration because I'm a big picture person. I took advantage of Boston University's employee benefit to get my master's in Administrative Finance, and then went to law school to better understand the legal aspects of contracts and terms so I could work more effectively with general counsel and help my directors and professors. Today I work with a team that concentrates on making vaccines, and it's awesome to be in the midst of these smart researchers working on things like adjuvants that will prevent us from getting sore arms from shots.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Geraldine
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
When I moved to the School of Public Health and joined my first departmental role, the chair of my department, who was my direct supervisor, gave me advice that has stayed with me. He said that in this business, we work with a lot of smart people, but you have to deal with different personalities from different cultures. He told me, 'Geraldine, to really progress and excel in this business, the lens that you look at people will be the key to how you progress and how you succeed. If your lens is too narrow, you will run into problems. If your lens is too wide, you will run into problems. The key to being successful is keeping your lens balanced. Not too wide and not too narrow.' I've taken that with me everywhere, and especially this year as I plan the spring meeting in Connecticut, it's been very challenging dealing with 30 program committee members planning this 4-day meeting, and I've really used that advice, looking at different people's capacity, not narrowing the lens, not widening the lens, but just trying to keep a balanced lens as I walk through all the different responsibilities and tasks.
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