UNLV celebrates its 60th Anniversary this academic year. Milestones like this tend to put everyone on campus in a reflective mood as we think back to our beginnings, take stock of where we currently stand, and look toward our future goals.
We’re also celebrating the arrival of a new key member of our leadership team: Mary Croughan, UNLV’s new vice president for research and economic development. Croughan is a seasoned administrator and researcher from the University of California system with more than 30 years of experience in higher education, and we look forward to seeing where she will take our current research and economic development efforts.
So many of those efforts require an integration into and collaboration with our community. This connection enables UNLV research, scholarly, and creative activities to stimulate diversification in our community; enrich our region’s cultural vitality; create synergistic partnerships, collaborations, and pipelines; produce a powerful STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) workforce; and bring new products and services to market.
I can’t say for sure exactly what the next 60 years will bring in the way of UNLV innovations, but I have every faith that these innovations will impact the lives of those in our community for the better. In the meantime, I hope that you will celebrate with us what we’ve already accomplished together; that you will enjoy this cross-section of research, scholarly, and creative activity happening in each of our colleges and schools in response to the issues our community faces today; and that you will continue to share with us your goals for and vision of tomorrow.
Dr. Len Jessup
UNLV President
As UNLV’s new vice president for research and economic development, I’m delighted to share the latest issue of Innovation magazine with you.
Our 2017 issue focuses on a subject that’s close to my heart: community-centered research. As an epidemiologist, I have studied health issues such as infertility, pregnancy, and primary care in the hopes of improving the lives of those around me. That goal continues as an administrator at UNLV, where I’m working to improve the research infrastructure and support so we can increase the quality and quantity of research conducted at UNLV. The better the research that we conduct, the better we will be able to address issues in our community, the state, and the nation.
One type of support that is mission critical for achieving this goal is mentorship. Mentorship has made a tremendous difference in my life, from the social justice and service components of my parents’ careers to the dozens of mentors in teaching, career development, research, and administration who helped me grow toward the position I hold today.
I plan to pay it forward here at UNLV through creating and building upon programs that foster strong mentoring relationships among our researchers. With increased inter-disciplinary collaboration, grant-writing partnerships, and improved research infrastructure, we become more competitive for the funding required to conduct impactful research and build a stronger campus even better equipped to address the issues of our larger Nevada community.
Please feel free to contact me directly at mary.croughan@unlv.edu to share your thoughts on what our community needs as well as your ideas on how we can work together to address those needs from a research perspective and beyond. There is much we can accomplish through collaboration.
To learn more about our goals and our latest research endeavors, visit the Research and Economic Development website.
Dr. Mary Croughan
UNLV Vice President for Research and Economic Development
