Office of Research and Creative Scholarship Newsletter
From The Office of the VPR
Expanding our services and welcoming new colleagues
ORCS supports the UM research community to accelerate discovery and deliver impact. Campus researchers are most familiar with our Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), the specialized group that supports the grant process from proposal to closure. But we also offer a suite of other services, including an Office of Research Development to help increase proposal competitiveness, opportunities to share research with public audiences through the Broader Impacts Group, and much more. Over the past year, I’ve received emphatic requests for investment in two additional areas: statistical support and commercialization.
In response to these requests, ORCS has hired two new team members that will expand our capacity to serve and support your work.
Commercialization support: Dr. Harmen Steele joined ORCS as the Director of Technology Transfer in July. Harmen brings extensive experience in commercialization from the University of North Carolina. He earned his PhD in biophysics from UM, and he has a deep sense of pride in our university and community. This dedicated full-time position addresses a faculty-identified need for faster and more streamlined commercialization pathways. It also demonstrates UM’s commitment to solving real-world problems with research innovations.
Statistical support: Dr. Joran Elias joined ORCS as a Statistical Analyst in August. Joran holds a PhD in Mathematics and brings academic and private sector statistical experience to supporting our research community. He will serve as a resource for both UM faculty and students. Joran can provide support during the proposal development stage, including sampling design, and can also assist with data analysis. As part of his role, Joran will teach the STAT 451/452 series for graduate students.
Welcome Harmen and Joran.
Meet Our Staff
Harmen Steele
Harmen Steele joined the University of Montana as Director of Technology Transfer to help move promising ideas, discoveries, and technologies from campus into the world, whether that happens through licensing, partnerships, startup companies, or other paths to impact.
Before returning to UM, Harmen worked as a commercialization manager at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, helping researchers explore the potential of early-stage technologies and develop pathways toward real-world use. Earlier in his career, he worked in the National Cancer Institute’s Office of Technology Transfer and spent time at the bench at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
His career has taken a few interesting turns along the way. Harmen has founded a web development firm, worked in the dot-com world, trained service dogs, and spent an earlier chapter of his life in entertainment, theater, and rock and roll. That mix of science, business, creativity, and problem-solving has shaped how he approaches technology transfer today.
Harmen and his family have called Missoula home since 2011. He lives with his wife, Kelly, their 17-year-old son, Finnegan, who attends Sentinel High School, and their two dogs, Milo and Mazie. Outside of work, he is active in the local curling community and has been involved with the Missoula Curling Club for many years.
Harmen is excited to be back at UM in a role that brings together science, entrepreneurship, and community. He believes university research should ultimately make a difference in the lives of everyday people, and he is looking forward to helping more UM ideas find their way beyond campus.
Joran Elias
Joran Elias is returning to UM as the Statistical Analyst for ORCS to provide statistical support for faculty and graduate students in developing grant proposals, performing research, and writing/presenting statistical results. Joran grew up in New England and moved to Missoula to attend graduate school at UM, eventually receiving his PhD in statistics in 2009. After a brief stint living on the Olympic Peninsula, he returned to Missoula with his family, where he has worked for UM in the Office of Institutional Research, as well as other remote jobs in the healthcare and cybersecurity industries. When he's not exploring a data set, Joran spends his winters alpine skiing with his family, or cross-country skiing on his own. The rest of the year he enjoys spending time on his gravel bike or running long distances in the mountains (air quality permitting). He also enjoys playing soccer from time to time, as long as he's not injured, which sadly happens more and more frequently as he ages.
Research & Creative Scholarship Stories
Summer Research Round Up!
Turtles, Turtles, Turtles
Along the marshy shores of Jones Pond at the University of Montana’s Lubrecht Experimental Forest, a new long-term research project is emerging that seeks to better understand western painted turtles and the impacts of climate change on their populations.
The study is led by Erim Gómez, an assistant professor of wildlife biology at the University’s W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, who said it’s been more than two-decades since an intensive research paper has been written about the species in Montana. During the next 20 years, Gómez and UM students will capture turtles to record data related to their size, weight, sex and age. Read the entire story on UM News.
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