Associate Vice President for Research & Innovation
Christopher Freel, Ph.D., M.B.A., associate vice president for Research & Innovation, works closely with Vice President for Research & Innovation Jennifer Lodge, Ph.D., 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.
Freel comes to the Office for Research & Innovation 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.
Freel 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, Freel earned a Master of Business Administration from Duke's Fuqua School of Business.
As associate vice president, Freel is committed to assuring that the services and resources offered through research administration meet the needs of the research community across Duke schools, institutes and centers.