EXPERIENCE

Organized and implemented the peer-review of thousands of proposals annually for national grant programs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia • Oversaw four national STEM funding agencies for more than a decade, including program design, policies, external funding, staff training, evaluation site visits, budgeting, and proposal peer review • Designed and implemented peer-review systems for US states investing in technology-based innovation, public health, and basic research • Trained the staff of national funding agencies in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the Southern Caucasus, and the United States.

Provided formative and summative evaluations for $20 million STEM project consortia across the United States • Trained the university leadership in Bahrain on the use of logic models and strategic assessment in expanding technology-based innovation • Designed and implemented a strategic assessment for the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) to create internal systems to develop the next generation of leaders for institutional sustainability and growth • Assessed the fragmented technology commercialization programs of the New Mexico State university and recommended a plan to consolidate resources, improve faculty participation, and save costs while increasing innovation impacts • Created the logic model and monitoring and evaluation plan for a regional forestry and satellite monitoring program and trained the project on following and implementing these plans to assure project success and report quantitative impacts • Reviewed the strategy of Florida State University to create a bioinformatics center and recommend an optimal approach to extend the benefits and impacts across academic divisions, to avoid pitfalls in the planning roadmap, and to secure longterm sustainability • Assessed the plans at the University of Virginia to significantly expand and consolidate on-campus IT systems and provided critical path recommendations on clarifying lines of authority and accountability while broadening benefit and impact across academic divisions.

While serving as an executive officer on the Board of Directors at a STEM-focused international foundation, researched the emerging capacities of AI systems and evaluated their limitations of performance, ethical pitfalls, compliance requirements of external partners, and internal workflows and process in order to develop the foundation's policies and best practices for the use of AI and to create and present an all-staff training to launch effective, secure, ethical, and efficient use of AI to advance the foundation's success • Provided support and guidance to the President and CEO of STEM-oriented international corporation on the current state of consumer-level AI systems and carried out a project to setup multiple AI agents to provide market research, internal corporate research, and address an extensive set of client on a tight deadline. Also created a custom agent to provide ongoing ideation and decision-making support for a planned CEO initiative to lead a significant organizational transition • Evaluated the landscape of AI usage in national innovation systems, identified four key barriers to effective AI adoption, and developed a national action plan for human capacity development to achieve comprehensive and adaptive use of AI across the innovation ecosystem using a portfolio of custom designed AI agents designed with deep insight into the needs of researchers, technology entrepreneurs, research managers, and institutional leaders. 

Coordinated training on program monitoring, evaluation, and impact measurement for the internal grant office during the start-up of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) • Built unique curricula and led hands-on courses on strategies for success in proposal writing and the publication of peer-reviewed papers for more than 6,000 faculty and students in more than twenty countries including Indonesia, Ethiopia, the United States, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Jordan, and Kazakhstan • Created a series of short courses on Research Ethics for the government of Saudi Arabia and taught the courses to regional audiences of faculty in Tabuk, Jeddah, Abha, and Riyadh • Created and led two courses for the government of Poland to train staff of the two national STEM funding agencies in best practices in organizing and implementing peer-reviewed grant competitions, with an emphasis on examples from the US National Science Foundation • Developed and led a course for displaced Ukrainian engineers and entrepreneurs on  Knowledge Security, Research Vetting, and Cyber Security to prevent theft of intellectual property while isolated from their home institutions • Designed and led an immersive course for newly hired program officers during the startup phase of the Qatar National Research Foundation (QNRF), comprehensively covering the design of grant programs, the writing of effective requests for proposals (RFPs), the design and operation of the peer-review process, techniques for identifying and soliciting reviewers, the process for quality control screening and remediation of written reviews, strategies for effectively addressing applicant inquiries and complaints, and best practices in post-award management • Developed and provided a course for the staff of a national funding agency in Armenia on institutional strategic planning and fundraising • Wrote and recorded a video for the US research community on the top ten pitfalls in writing a grant proposal.

Designed, planned, coordinated the organization of, and secured international funding for a UNESCO conference on "Science and Education Policies in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Baltic Countries," bringing together more than two hundred national STEM leaders from the United States and Europe to compare national approaches to Strengthening the International Impact of National Research & Education Programmes, Strengthening Research in Higher Education, Developing a Knowledge-Based Economy, and Stemming and Reversing Brain Drain • Coordinated the work of twenty national academies of science and ministerial leaders to draft and develop the G20's science working group (S20) official report, "Foresight: Science of Navigating Critical Transitions" and the accompanying formal policy communication to the G20. The Report addressed four topics of multilateral concern for G20 nations: Future of Health: Preventing Pandemics and Expanding Personalized Healthcare; Circular Economy: Holistic Solutions for Our Environment; The Digital Revolution: Achieving Universal Connectivity, Sustainability, Security, and Resilience; and Scientific Foresight: Connecting the Dots • Designed the themes and format, recruited the international keynote speakers and panelists, and wrote the proceedings for an international conference on Models for Success in Managing National R&D Resources co-sponsored by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). The Conference was the first joint initiative of the two national organizations and addressed three themes: International Integration and Impact; Securing the Next Generation of Scientists; and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The keynote speaker recruited for the conference was Mr. Norm Augustine, former Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation and former member of the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.