Susan Ferrari

Susan Ferrari joined Grinnell College in 2013 and leads the Office of Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations. As assistant dean and director, she supports grant seeking by individual faculty and staff members and leads efforts to secure external support for institutional initiatives. Since becoming director of the office in 2014, Ferrari has also developed and implemented research development programming that helps faculty and staff members highlight the significance of their work, refine their self-presentation as scholars, and advance their scholarship within a supportive community of colleagues. Under Ferrari’s leadership, the Grants Office has taken on the administration of the Grinnell Lecture, an annual celebration of faculty scholarship.

Ferrari is also active in national efforts to support and advocate for scholarship and grant seeking at liberal arts colleges. She is currently the chair of the Colleges of Liberal Arts Sponsored Programs (CLASP) group, which supports grants professionals at over 300 primarily undergraduate institutions. She has presented at conferences run by CLASP, the Council on Advancement and Support of Education, the National Organization of Research Development Professionals, and other professional societies, and her research (on supporting and developing faculty members who lead institutional grants) has been funded by the New Opportunities in Research Development/InfoReady Grants Program.

Ferrari earned a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining Grinnell College, Ferrari was a postdoctoral research scholar in the Department of Biology at the University of Iowa, where she studied meiosis and DNA repair.