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Welcome to 2025: Updates from the Communications Committee

Hello and Happy New Year! As the new co-chairs of the Communications Committee, we wanted to take a minute to introduce ourselves and give you a little sneak-peak of what's to come in the coming months. 

• I am Dr. Julie Swaringim-Griffin, the current Assistant Vice President of the Central Sponsored Programs Administration (CSPA) at Oklahoma State University. CSPA offers contract review services, grant writing services for seven campuses, eRA management, sponsored programs support to administrative units and provides professional development for sponsored programs staff campus wide. For SRAI, I have served as a JRA Author Fellowship Program Peer Advisor for two years and also serve on the SRAI Podcast Committee. I am very thankful for the opportunity to serve as a co-chair of the Communications Committee and look forward to positively contributing to SRAI alongside my colleague and co-chair Rob. 
• I am Rob McTear, the current Director of Research Administration for the Department of Radiation Oncology at New York University School of Medicine. I have been in this role for just over eight years now and oversee all aspects of research within the department including grants, agreements, compliance, etc. I have been a part of SRAI for over 11 years and serve on the SRAI Diversity, Engagement, and Inclusion Committee, and now as one of the co-chairs of the Communications Committee. I have made amazing friends and colleagues during my time with SRAI so far, and am looking forward to continuing to learn and grow in this new position. 

As co-chairs, we are charged with the oversight of the Journal of Research Administration, the Shop Talk Podcast, and the Catalyst. We will work closely with the leaders of each media outlet to support their work and make sure everything runs smoothly. The Journal will continue to function at the high level of rigor it has always been known for. The Podcast has an exciting new theme of episodes this year, Navigating Change: Innovations and Conversations in Research Administration, and welcomes a new Chair in Jumionne Tiako. The Catalyst also welcomes a new Editor in Farida Lada, and she will be leading the change in format starting with our March issue. Keep an eye out for next month's Catalyst for more information on the format change from Farida and our new Feature Editors. They will each include an article in our February issue explaining the changes in more detail and describing our featured sections. 

We are very excited to be taking on these roles as Communications Committee co-chairs and to be working with some wonderfully talented people across SRAI's publication outlets. Please feel free to reach out with questions or concerns at any time. We want to make sure the Journal, the Podcast, and the Catalyst are serving the needs of the SRAI community and your input is invaluable to achieving that goal. We also want to encourage you to contribute to SRAI's publications. We are always looking for input from the community! So if you are interested, please feel free to reach out to us or one of the editors on how to get involved with the committees or to submit for publication. 

For questions about the Catalyst, please email catalyst@srainternational.org. For questions about the Journal of Research Administration, please email  journal@srainternational.org. For questions about the Shop Talk Podcast, please email communications@srainternational.org.