Cynthia Edmonds, Director

Cynthia Edmonds, Director for the Office of Research Support Committees (ORSC), leads a team of professionals that provide comprehensive services that support the research endeavors of the University and its faculty, staff, and students.

ORSC is the administrative office at UTHSC-H that facilitates research review activities of the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) and the Animal Welfare Committee (AWC).  The office led by Cynthia is a group of dedicated professionals who are responsible for

1. advising and guiding investigators and coordinators on federal and institutional regulations/policies;
2. interacting with the CPHS and AWC members and research staff on initial and continued management of protocols submitted for review;
3. providing assistance to the public health and biomedical research community in regard to research submissions and information requests;
4. overseeing the operational issues necessary to ensure the timely and accurate processing of protocol submissions to CPHS and AWC;
5. providing administrative support to CPHS and AWC(i.e preparing meeting agendas and minutes; creating and distributing memos on behalf of CPHS and AWC
6. organizing the monthly CPHS and AWC meetings; and providing the necessary support to the committee members during meetings).
7. serving as a Research Intermediary between the investigator and subject to ensure that the subjects fully understands the risks and benefits of protocols determined to be high risk; and
8. performing monitoring activities of open protocols to ensure compliance with institutional and federal policies.