A message from Andy Johns, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research senior associate vice chancellor for research, Blossom Damania, School of Medicine Boshamer Distinguished Professor and vice dean for research, and Ian Buchanon, UNC Health chief care innovation officer.
Please join us in congratulating Shakira Henderson on her acceptance of the deanship of the College of Nursing at the University of Florida (UF). She will be departing Carolina at the end of November to assume her new responsibilities, which also include serving as associate vice president for nursing education, practice, and research for UF Health.
Henderson has served as assistant vice chancellor for clinical research since April of 2022. She held this joint appointment within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research in addition to serving as vice president for research with UNC Health and as clinical research integration officer with the UNC School of Medicine (SOM). While she held these roles, she provided seamless integration of clinical research management across all three entities.
We will greatly miss her leadership. Henderson provided invaluable support to the campus community through spearheading the launch and Phase 1 development of the ONE UNC Clinical Research initiative, a joint effort between the University and UNC Health to transform the clinical research administrative processes to be more synergistic, efficient, and effective. Phase 1 of the initiative concluded in June, and working groups are actively making progress on Phase 2, which includes pilot proposal development.
ONE UNC Clinical Research is an exciting opportunity that will accelerate our efforts to grow our clinical research across campus. As Henderson steps down, Laura Viera and Michael Sledge will transition into leading the initiative on an interim basis until a permanent replacement is named. Viera currently serves as the as co-director of SOM’s Clinical Research Support Office, and Sledge is vice president and chief business officer of the SOM’s Clinical Research Alliance. Both are very familiar with ONE UNC Clinical Research, having served on the steering task force for the effort.
Again, please join us in congratulating Shakira on her exciting new role and supporting Laura and Michael as they step into overseeing ONE UNC Clinical Research.