Staff

Karen E. Eck, Ph.D.
Director of Research Development
(757) 683-3707
keck@odu.edu

Dr. Eck joined the Office of Research in October 2009. Her role includes working with faculty and staff to identify, facilitate, and support the formation of multi-investigator, multidisciplinary, inter-college, and inter-institutional research initiatives. Working with the five Grant Writers and Research Coordinator, she assists faculty with the development of high quality grant proposals, identifying appropriate funding opportunities, interpreting grant program guidelines, facilitating team grant proposals, and delivering workshops on all aspects of grantsmanship and proposal development. She works with the Vice President for Research in managing intramural funding programs, representing ODU on regional research and education consortium, and liaising with federal and state funding bodies and corporate partners.

Dr. Eck holds a MA and PhD in Experimental Psychology from Kent State University and a BA in Psychology and French from Indiana University. Prior to joining the Office of Research, she was the biomedical Grants Officer at McGill University in Montreal, Canada for four years. She also served as a post-doctoral researcher at McGill and the Université de Montréal and as Director of Community Resource Development for Federation CJA, a non-profit umbrella organization supporting community service agencies in the Montreal Jewish community. Her academic training is in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics with a focus on bilingualism and she has taught courses in research methods, developmental psychology and psychology of language. She has presented workshops on grantsmanship, peer review, and foundation funding, most recently developing a webinar series on the National Institutes of Health for the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators (CAURA)