HRPP Newsletter May 2023
Office of Research Compliance Staffing Update
The Office of Research Compliance is excited to welcome Katie Schjei as a new HRPP Quality and Compliance Analyst and member of the Post-Approval Monitoring team. Katie has an MA in psychology and brings over 10 years of clinical research experience. Here at UW, she has worked both as a research coordinator (in Orthopedics and Rehabilitation and the Cancer Center) and a regulatory specialist (Cancer Center), and we are thrilled to have her on our team.
IRB Chair Announcement
It is with much appreciation and gratitude that we announce the departure of our long-time IRB chair, Peter Rahko. Dr. Rahko was instrumental in setting up the Minimal Risk IRB (now part of the Minimal Risk Research IRB) and served as its chair since its inception in 2003 before moving to the Health Sciences IRB Chair role in the midst of the IRB efficiency project in 2021. His leadership over these many years has been instrumental to the success of both boards; IRB members and office staff alike have come to rely on his steady presence and expert guidance in navigating complex and often ambiguous human research protection issues. While his departure is no doubt a loss for the IRB, we are excited for the additional time he will have to commit to his new role as Deputy Editor for the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography.
With Dr. Rahko’s departure, we are very excited to announce that Dr. Sameer Mathur will be stepping into the role of Chair for the HS IRB as of July 1. Dr. Mathur is an associate professor within the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine as well as a Fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and has received numerous awards for his contributions to research and education, including the Department of Medicine Puestow Research Award for Junior Faculty and the NIH Loan Repayment Program Award. We look forward to working with Dr. Mathur in his new role!
Request for Unaffiliated IRB Members
Do you know someone who might be interested in volunteering as an unaffiliated member for our IRB? Unaffiliated members are key to the success of the IRB and are one of 3 “required” members by the regulations, serving an important role in representing community interests and viewpoints. They are individuals who are not, and whose immediate family members are not, current UW employees or students. Unaffiliated members do not need to have research experience or have a scientific background. Such volunteers will serve on one IRB panel per month and have the opportunity to participate in interesting and critical work that serves the public good. Interested individuals can be directed to IRBdirector@hsirb.wisc.edu.