Office for Research & Innovation

R. Sanders "Sandy" Williams, MD, is a physician-scientist and biomedical executive. He serves currently as Vice President for Research & Innovation (interim) for Duke University. He is President Emeritus of the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. Other previous positions include: Professor of Medicine at Duke and at UCSF; Dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University; founding Dean of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore; and Chief of Cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He was educated at Princeton University and Duke School of Medicine, and pursued advanced training in science and medicine at Harvard (residency at Massachusetts General Hospital), Duke (cardiology and biochemistry fellowships), Oxford University (molecular biology), and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (molecular biology). He is active at the interface between academia and life science industries, serving currently as a Director of public companies Amgen and Laboratory Corporation of America, and of private biotechnology companies Escape Bio and Tenaya Therapeutics. He served previously as a Director of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Dr. Williams is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.

The Associate Vice President for Research works closely with Interim Vice President Williams on issues related to sponsored research compliance and research administration support services. This includes the development and implementation of efficient and effective policies and systems to streamline research and promote discovery by removing institutional barriers.

Chris comes to the Office of Research after several years as the Associate Vice Provost for Research and the former Assistant Dean for Basic Research in the Duke University School of Medicine. As an administrator, he has concentrated on representing the broad interests and needs of the research community and worked closely with the Research Administration Continuous Improvement (RACI) initiative, a body committed to improving Duke’s research support structure to better serve our faculty and researchers.

Chris earned an undergraduate degree in biology from Warren Wilson College and completed his doctoral studies in cell and developmental biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He conducted his postdoctoral training in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke investigating the molecular mechanisms of programmed cell death and has published manuscripts in a number of cancer-related fields. Most recently, Chris earned an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business.

As Associate Vice President, Chris is committed to assuring that the services and resources offered through research administration meet the needs of the research community across Duke’s schools, institutes, and centers.

Dr. Swamy works with leaders across the Duke campus to provide a consistent vision for scientific integrity standards and expectations and drives efforts to ensure the advancement of scientific integrity. Her responsibilities include leading the  Duke Office of Scientific Integrity (DOSI), which includes the Advancing Scientific Integrity, Services and Training (ASIST) initiative, conflict of interest disclosure and management, clinical research quality management, misconduct in research), and institutional research incident response. She also oversees the Duke Office of Research Initiatives (DORI) which works to facilitate effective research and collaborations for the Duke research community.

As Associate VP for Translation & Commercialization, Ms. Rasor oversees all functions of the tech transfer process at the University. Previously, Ms. Rasor was Managing Director of Licensing at the University of Michigan where she oversaw the licensing process ranging from management and marketing of disclosures to developing and negotiating appropriate licensing terms for license agreements, and finally to maintaining and monitoring existing agreements.

Ms. Rasor is also a former Director of Licensing at The Ohio State University and former employee of Battelle Columbus Laboratories, a leading US contract research firm.

Ms. Rasor has a MS in Genetics from The Ohio State University and a BS in Bacteriology and Zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University. She has earned the CLP (Certified Licensing Professional) credential and is past President and Chair of the Board of Governors of Certified Licensing Professionals, Inc.  Ms. Rasor is a Past President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Board of Trustees.  She has also served on the Board of Directors, most recently as Treasurer, of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce.

In 2005, she was awarded the President’s Award for service to AUTM. In 2007, Ms. Rasor was part of the team headed by Michigan’s Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan honored by The American Association for Cancer Research in its first annual AACR Team Science Award.

Professor John E. Dolbow came to Duke University from Northwestern University, where he received an MS and PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. During the course of his graduate study, John was a Computational Science Graduate Fellow for the Department of Energy, and he spent a summer working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Dolbow's research concerns the development of computational methods for nonlinear problems in solid mechanics. In particular, he is interested in modeling quasi-static and dynamic fracture of structural components, the evolution of interfaces with nonlinear constitutive laws, and developing models for stimulus-responsive hydrogels. A native of New Hampshire, Dr. Dolbow received his Bachelor's Degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New Hampshire.

Svetlana comes to the Office for Research & Innovation with a combination of extensive research and teaching experience, and a significant background in fine arts.

Svetlana earned her undergraduate degree in Physics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, and her PhD in Experimental High Energy Physics and MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI.  Her graduate research involved ultra-cold spin-polarized hydrogen targets for use in high energy physics experiments. While a graduate student in dance, an elective anatomy class sparked her interest in neuroscience and lead her to complete two postdoctoral fellowships in experimental neuroscience - first in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan and then in the Pharmacology Department at the University of Washington in Seattle studying molecular mechanisms of exocytosis using electrophysiological, optical and biochemical methods. After joining Towson University in 2015, Svetlana has established research activity in the field of computational neuroscience, drawing on both her physics background and her experimental neuroscience experience.  

Her teaching career interlaced with research and included teaching a wide variety of courses from physics of all levels to interdisciplinary and inter-field subjects.  Her artistic endeavors culminated in a number of collaborations with theater, dance and music collectives.

As Assistant Vice President, Svetlana is committed to support the development, marketing, and application of Duke's research potential and to assist the research community across Duke’s schools, institutes and centers.

Delores Nolen is the Executive Assistant for the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. Returning to Duke in 2001, after working in the corporate sector, she manages the general office activities. She performs advanced, diversified, and confidential administrative duties to relieve the Vice President of details regarding routine executive business matters. Delores has a B.S. in Business, with a concentration in Management and Operations from North Carolina Central University, and holds several professional certifications. She enjoys cooking and loves the beach.

Alyssa Dack is the Research Policy Manager for the Office for Research & Innovation (OR&I). Her affiliation with Duke stretches back to 2006, when she enrolled as an undergraduate and has also included serving with the Office of Government Relations in Duke in D.C., the University’s outpost in the nation’s capital and as the Research & Policy Coordinator for Research Costing & Compliance, focusing on managing policies relating to financial and administrative compliance for Duke University Research Administration. Prior to joining Duke’s staff, Alyssa worked as a legislative aide in the Office of Congressman Mike McIntyre (NC-7). She holds a B.A. in Public Policy Studies.