Elizabeth Festa, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Festa serves as Managing Director in the firm’s Research Universities Practice. In this role, Elizabeth supports a range of clients in capacity building, strategic intelligence, project management, and grants consulting.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to R&D consulting at McAllister & Quinn?
“In my previous position, I worked in the central office of Research Development at Rice University. There, I was exposed to a variety of proposal mechanisms from early career awards and individual PI grants to large, center-based opportunities.
At Rice, we had a very large NSF portfolio, but I had the opportunity to work with teams on NIH, DOE, DoD, ARPA, NASA, Department of Education, NEH, and Fulbright grants among others. We had a very talented faculty, and I learned a lot from them as well as from my colleagues in the RD office. I also had the opportunity to design and lead workshop series and to work hand-in-hand with sponsored projects, STEM engagement, and the Center for Teaching on various projects.
However, I wanted the opportunity for growth that M&Q provides. Specifically, at M&Q I am working with a range of clients, including R1 and R2, all with different portfolios and different needs. I am especially appreciative of the opportunity to benefit from and contribute to the firm’s strategic intelligence mission. The program agency guides, the interviews with potential experts that have served at these agencies, and actually, every red team review is a learning experience.
Finally, M&Q is a more agile environment than the typical university setting. I feel very grateful to be allowed to explore topics that were outside my purview at the university.”
What previous roles have you held that prepared you for an RD consulting position?
“Before graduate school I was a platoon leader in a quartermaster unit. I also served as a primary staff officer at the battalion level. In these environments, I was exposed to project management and to communicating effectively across organizations.
During my doctoral studies, in 19th and 20th c. American literature, I began teaching. I landed a tenure track job in a recession market, but I am in a dual academic family, and I ultimately decided not to pursue this path. However, I went on to become a lecturer in academic writing and communication at Rice University and ultimately, was instructor-of-record for over 40 courses including foundational courses in research writing at multiple levels.
I led training in every school of study at Rice, including music, architecture, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. I taught everything from writing a literature review in engineering, to analyzing visual arguments in ethnographic film, to preparing an article for a multidisciplinary journal, to presenting a case study in architecture, to giving a PechaKucha talk at a transdisciplinary science conference. It was in this role that I began to see the patterns in effective communication across genres and disciplines and developed confidence in reading and offering feedback on work outside my own discipline—this has been invaluable to the work I do now.
Our writing program at Rice had a (smaller) faculty mission—I gave developmental editing consultations to faculty on their articles and book projects. That was my first exposure to consulting with faculty. I still work as a freelance developmental editor for faculty book projects on occasion.
Through Rice, I also had the opportunity to work for Baylor College of Medicine in several programs and to serve on an IRB (which I continue to do to this day). These experiences have also been useful to me in my current role.”
Was there a defining moment or experience that inspired you to pursue the field of research development?
“Yes. I was selected to serve as a reviewer for the Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling funding opportunity for three years—including its inaugural year. As such, I was able to give feedback and shape guidance given to applicants in future competitions. I also witnessed how a consensus review system works. This program funded applicants to pursue a 1, 2, or 3-country research project on a pertinent topic (e.g., wildlife conservation, climate change, food security, water, energy) and communicate their findings to the public through various media forms—art, photography, vlogging, blogging—under the mentorship of the National Geographic Staff and on the National Geographic platform. So, they had to present a strong research program, but also demonstrate talent as a public communicator through a portfolio of their writing/art. During the first year of the competition, there were over 700 applications for just 5 slots. It was such an exciting and edifying experience.
I attended NORDP (The National Organization for Research Development Professionals) while I was still working in a writing program and hadn’t even started working at an RD office. That very positive experience galvanized my commitment to transitioning to RD.”
Are there any specific skills or specializations you’re particularly excited to contribute or explore?
“Team science is something that I’ve wanted to explore more deeply. As I was preparing to enter the profession of RD, I began reading some seminal works in this field, including some that came out of humanities contexts. (e.g. The Toolbox Dialogue). Humanists have been talking about and writing about interdisciplinarity for quite some time and have been instrumental in theorizing interdisciplinarity in team science.
Team science was also interesting to me because, like other humanists, I was trained as a solo researcher. It is often surprising to scholars in the sciences that completing a Ph.D. in humanities is a solo endeavor—your overarching research question isn’t typically a part of your dissertation advisor’s research agenda. They often work in your time period, or in a theoretical field that is relevant to some aspect of your project, but they do not have a personal investment in your topic. This is part of the reason why doctorates in humanities often take so long to complete (the national average is 6-8 years). Humanists are the “lead PI” long before they are ready to assume that position!”
There are several challenges in team science endeavors—of those, knowledge integration is the most fascinating to me.
“Our composition style is very different too—most humanities projects are single-author, and the monograph (single-author book) is the tenure requirement at R1 institutions. This book can take 5-7 years to complete. So, it isn’t a team effort for the most part. I was fascinated by team science writing when I was working in the writing center and in the RD office because my own field was not collaborative.”
How do you see your work benefiting the research clients and perhaps some of the social impacts in your role?
“In my current work, I greatly enjoy connecting our clients to the resources—whether human, textual, digital—that will help them to take their research to the next level, however they conceive the next level. My previous experiences have led me to this point.
Having taught for so long has helped me to take the long view with most endeavors. A proposal is a competition. And it’s important to “show results.” But results can’t be captured entirely in a win.
It’s important to recognize that every nudge, every bit of advice, every effort that you make is valuable, whether you see an immediate impact or not. That’s what capacity building truly is. Moreover, every individual can benefit from intel, feedback, guidance—regardless of how talented or how well-resourced they might be. I want to give our clients a competitive advantage on proposals, of course, but I also want to help them to develop as researchers, to influence the guidance they give to their own graduate students, and to support their growth over time.”