About Our Instructors
Our instructors have a minimum of ten years experience in successful grant proposal writing, strategic grant planning for diverse donors and in many cases have effectively taken organizations through audits. Each is knowledgeable of the current guidelines in proposal development and submissions. Many have served as evaluators of grant proposals in health related fields, science, education, technology, environmental studies, interdisciplinary programs, homeland security, and the arts. Most importantly, all comprehend the magnitude and significance of what it takes to initiate, visualize, develop and implement the proposals that make a difference for one's research, department, and organization.
We understand that to conduct a training workshop takes more than expertise; it takes the ability to relate to the needs and interests of our participants in an interactive and productive workshop. Our trainers excel in understanding the individual needs of our participants.
Dr. Mathilda Harris - Executive Director
Dr. Mathilda (Tillie) Harris holds a doctorate from George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), a Master of Arts degree from the University of Portland (Portland, Oregon) and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California (Berkeley, California).
During the past eighteen years she has written grants, conducted capital campaigns, developed strategic plans on grant procurement and assisted individuals and institutions nationally and internationally to successfully write and receive funding from federal, corporate, private, foundation and multi-lateral donors.
She has conducted national and international workshops on grant planning, writing, development and procurement at such universities as Ohio State University, Duke University, University of North Carolina, Carnegie Mellon University, University of London, the University of New South Wales (Australia), the University of Ottawa and various other Canadian, European, South American and Asian universities and non-profit organizations.
She has served as a reader and evaluator of grant competitions for the U.S. Department of Education, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Dr. Catherine Campbell
Dr. Campbell, obtained her B.S. from Cornell University, and her M.S. and PhD in Marine Biology from the University of Miami. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she has worked as a consultant to U.S. government clients for the past decade. She is currently a Principal Molecular Biologist with Noblis and has a decade of professional experience in bioinformatics, as well as substantial experience in bench research in molecular and microbiology. During her career she has focused on the analysis of population based experiments designed to study both human disease and animal models of disease. Recent projects have involved designing informatics systems for biodefense and in silico identification of medical countermeasures and pathogen identification.
Her research work has encompassed both laboratory experiments and statistical and bioinformatics analysis of several important diseases including Gaucher’s disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and neurofibromatosis.
Dr. Campbell has also served on many NIH review panels over the last decade spanning from SBIR reviews to reviews of large center grants.
Dr. Maria Esformes
Dr. Esformes received her B.A. from Portland State University (Portland, Oregon), M.A. from the University of Washington (Seattle, Washington), and her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado (Boulder, Colorado). Dr. Maria Esformes has lectured and taught for the Grant Training Center for four years. In her extensive career as an academic at such institutions as Harvard, University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, University of South Florida, and the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada she has written and received major research and programmatic grants from such donors as the Mellon Foundation, Skirball Foundation, Maurice Amado Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and various government grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, and the Fulbright Commission. Dr. Esformes has participated on many grant review panels for internal University grants and for government grants. Most recently she has reviewed grants for the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Dr. Robert Freishtat
Dr. Freishtat received his MD from the University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1997 followed by pediatric and pediatric emergency medicine training at the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) and Children's National Medical Center (Washington, DC), respectively. During this time, he completed a MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Dr. Freishtat is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Children's National Medical Center and the Departments of Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine, and Integrative Systems Biology in the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, DC. His research interests include systems biology investigations of childhood asthma and drug development for sepsis. Dr. Freishtat is a past recipient of a NIH K23 grant and his laboratory is currently funded by grants from NIH and foundations. Dr. Freishtat is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation for Medical Research and an active member of the American Thoracic Society. He has authored over 40 articles and book chapters in the fields of asthma, sepsis, and emergency medicine and is on the editorial board and/or reviews for 8 different journals.
Dr. Vicki Husby
Dr. Husby has, for the past two years, worked with the Grant Training Center to teach workshop participants to augment their grant writing skills for various disciplines and topics. She is an expert in professional learning with over 15 years experience in teaching and leading. Her roles have included K-12 teacher, assistant principal, special education coordinator, curriculum and professional learning director, consultant/business owner and adjunct college professor. Her work has routinely involved teaching others to write effectively, either in developing skills or meeting professional demands. She has written federal, foundation and research grants and served as a reviewer for various foundation and federal donors.
Dr. Husby has been recognized for her hands-on work in a variety of venues. She was named Georgia’s top middle grades teacher as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s 1999 Honor Teacher for her work with academically at-risk students. The author of "Individualizing Staff Development: A Framework for Meeting School and District Goals", she is respected for her practitioner-leadership in school-based action research and serves on the Internal Review Board for a large suburban school district in Georgia.
RoMa Johnson
Ms. RoMa Johnson is a Certified Fund Raising Executive, who has raised several million dollars of support from foundations, corporations, government sources, and individuals, and has trained hundreds of fundraisers in her role as instructor at UCLA and during her years as a consultant and trainer teaching workshops and seminars.
She has proven track record in facilitating organizations and individuals to accomplish their vision through solid business practices, mission-directed strategic planning and resource development. Her roles have included K-12 teacher, school principal, non-profit executive director, vice-president of advancement, foundation president, instructor and consultant. Her clients have included not-for-profit and faith-based organizations, community centers, healthcare providers and hospitals, universities, small municipalities and individuals.
Dr. Fatah Kasanchi
Dr. Fatah Kashanchi trained under the supervision of Dr. C. Wood who worked with Dr. Susumu Tonegawa (Nobel Laureate for Medicine, 1987) at MIT. Dr. Kashanchi further trained in Dr. John Brady’s lab at NIH/NCI from 1991-1998 and published more than 30 papers during his postdoc and senior investigator tenure. His research interests include both Genomics and Proteomics of HIV-1 and HTLV-1 infected cells. Research in Kashanchi’s lab has been funded by various internal and external sources including Selective Excellence, Keck, Snyder, Sinsheimer, Cyclacel, and more than 6 NIH grants, where he is the Principal investigator. Since his departure from NIH in 1998, Dr. Kashanchi has obtained $9.4 M of independent funding. He has 132 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, 9 book chapters, is an NIH study section member (7 independent study sections), as well as reviewer for 14 different journals.
Dr. Cassandra Murphy
Dr. Cassandra Murphy holds a doctorate from the University of New Orleans (New Orleans, Louisiana), a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Arts degree from Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan). She has over seventeen years of experience in research administration and faculty development at Tulane University, Xavier University, and Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) where she currently is the Assistant Director in the Office of Sponsored Programs.
She has conducted workshops on grant writing and development, and has assisted individuals and institutions nationally and internationally to successfully write and receive funding from federal, corporate, private and foundation sponsors.
Dr. Murphy has written grants and received over $12M in funding from agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Health Professions, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She has served as a reader and evaluator of grant competitions for the U.S. Department of Education, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education and the Institute of International Education.
