Katherine Hartmann, MD, PhD, Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Scientist Development, has been named Vice President for Research Integration for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
The new position in research leadership was established to enhance synergy across the Medical Center.
“Dr. Hartmann is extremely dedicated to the scientific community and has a proven ability to develop and lead programs that amplify the success of our investigators and institutional research strategy,” said Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, Executive Vice President for Research at VUMC and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
As Vice President for Research Integration, Hartmann will connect existing areas of excellence and create new opportunities in the research enterprise.
“My image is that Vanderbilt is a fabulous, immense loom. We have an extremely wide warp with amazing threads of every kind. I see opportunities to add to the weft: to make new connections, provide resources to smooth the way for research teams and increase the visibility of their accomplishments,” said Hartmann, professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medicine.
Her goals include stimulating new scientific, training and educational collaborations in the research enterprise; aligning and enhancing career development resources for all those conducting research; and developing robust infrastructure for data-driven evaluation of outcomes such as career trajectories, equity, interdisciplinary collaborations and metrics for extramural funding and awards.
Hartmann joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2006 and has held progressive leadership roles in academic career development and research administration, including in the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) and as deputy director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Medicine and Public Health.
Gordon Bernard, MD, Executive Vice President for Research at VUMC and director of VICTR, noted Hartmann’s national recognition for her role as principal investigator of NIH-funded career development awards because of the “remarkable success” of early career researchers at Vanderbilt.
“Dr. Hartmann’s commitment at the institutional and national level to creating practical tools to promote research success, demystify the nature of academic life and teach career strategy is unparalleled. She exemplifies unstinting investment in the research community,” Bernard said.
Hartmann and her career development team have built databases that track faculty expertise, grants and awards. They run a national platform, edgeforscholars.org, that provides a space for candid discussions about life in academics and has hundreds of authors and 355,000 unique users. The team also offers services including grant review sessions that mimic NIH study sections, a library of 300 funded grants and a variety of seminars and training sessions.
“Across the resources we’ve built, I’m proud that we have strong evidence about what works, and that we’ve kept a tight focus on meeting the practical needs of investigators. I am energized by this opportunity to define new ways of conceptualizing and serving the needs of the entire research community, including securing funds for innovative new resources,” Hartmann said.
Hartmann is an epidemiologist known for her leadership of Right from the Start, a study focused on early pregnancy that has enrolled participants since 2000 and now includes more than 7,900 participants. She holds the Lucius E. Burch Chair of Reproductive Physiology and Family Planning at Vanderbilt.
Hartmann earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in writing and her MD from the Johns Hopkins University. She was a resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she also completed a PhD in Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. As a faculty member at UNC, she was the founding director of the Center for Women’s Health Research, division director of Health Care Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and vice chair for Research in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
