Sara Schiller - In the Spotlight

Sara Schiller recently joined UMass Chan as a Radiology Research Program Manager, working with Drs. Alexander Bankier, Nicolas Bloch, and Gopal Vijayaraghavan on sponsored research.  She has a BS in Biology from Boston College, and an MPH from Yale University.  Sara spent three years as a Clinical Trial Coordinator at Joslin Diabetes Center, with a focus on clinical research in individuals with extreme duration Type-1 diabetes (50 or more years).  The past nine years were in federal service with the Department of Veterans Affairs. She was the lead for the VISN1 (New England) Clinical Trials Network, an initiative developed to support innovative as well as traditional research at VA Medical Centers in our region.  Most recently, she served as the National Program Manager for NAVIGATE, a collaboration with the National Cancer Institute to increase Veteran access to cancer treatment trials, particularly in lung and prostate cancer.  A majority of her work was focused on developing infrastructure needed to build sustainable research portfolios at individual VA sites and to improve research processes at VA on a national level.  Here at UMass, Sara "hopes to utilize my education and work experience to support clinical research that will ultimately improve patient care, advance practice through data-driven evidence, and allow the investigators for whom I work to focus on their unique research interests. I believe we can build a strong clinical research program that will make UMass and its investigators attractive to sponsors and allow us to participate in, and deliver on, promising projects."  In her spare time, Sara enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, Anna and Teddy, as well as reading, skiing, and hiking.