Our Office and Staff

Sid Kushner (Director) -- Sid trained in political science and during his career has taught constitutional law and judicial process, has been a policy analyst and consultant in Sacramento, an institutional grant development specialist, and a university sponsored research administrator.  He has been assisting CSU faculty and staff develop their funding programs since 1980.

Ellen Shimakawa (Associate Director) -- Ellen has a Ph.D. in genetics and was a full professor of Biology.  She has been a PI/PD on a number of major NIH, NSF, HUD, and Department of Education programs, a NIH Extramural Fellow, and is a regular study group/peer review panelist for those agencies.

Rachel Weiss (Assistant Director) -- Rachel has her Ph.D. in organizational behavior and research methods.  She has extensive expertise and experience in program evaluation, higher educational institutional research, and in NIH and Title V funded educational research and assessment.

Allison Mader (Office Manager/Grant Specialist) – Allison is the organizational core of the ORSP and is a skilled and able editor/proofreader and budget spreadsheet analyst.  She specializes in budget form entry and all of the other critical components of electronic proposal submission.

Cathleen Lucas (Electronic Proposal Coordinator) – Cathleen will be responsible for ensuring the integrity of the formal submission of grants to federal, state, and local agencies.  She will be trained and up to date on all of the agency processes and requirements.   She is responsible for all opportunity communications to faculty, office publications, web sites, and databases.