About the office
The Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP) supports anyone at Porter seeking outside money for research, training, equipment or community projects. It is led by Dr. Teodora Brekke, vice provost for research, and has seven staff split between pre-award (getting the grant) and post-award (spending it correctly). Review of human-subjects, animal and biosafety work happens through research compliance and the IRB, which ORSP coordinates but does not decide.
| Team | Lead |
|---|---|
| Pre-award: funding searches, budgets, submission | Annika Sorensen, director of sponsored programs |
| Post-award: accounts, invoicing, reporting, closeout | Dale Rygh, grants accounting manager |
| Proposal development and grant writing | Corinne Abernathy, proposal development specialist |
| Undergraduate research | Shared with undergraduate research |
FY2026 by the numbers
Faculty brought in a record $9.1 million in external awards in fiscal 2026 (July 2025–June 2026), up from $7.4 million the year before (the announcement). ORSP processed 141 proposals and 78 were funded. About sixty undergraduates were paid research assistants on funded projects, up from about forty.
| Sponsor type | Awards | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Federal (including a multi-year environmental monitoring contract on the Porter River) | 24 | $5.2M |
| State (led by a manufacturing-innovation grant) | 11 | $2.3M |
| Industry and regional employers | 29 | $0.9M |
| Foundations and nonprofits | 10 | $0.5M |
| Local government and other | 4 | $0.2M |
| Total | 78 | $9.1M |
FY2027 started with the $2.4 million federal workforce grant for the advanced manufacturing and robotics lab, announced in August.
Finding funding
Most Porter awards are applied: a state agency that wants a manufacturing process tested, a county that needs water-quality data from the Porter River, a regional health system studying readmissions. Pre-award staff run funding searches for any faculty or staff member who asks, and send a weekly digest of opportunities sorted by college.
- First-time applicants get a pre-award officer for the whole proposal and a read-through of the narrative by the proposal development specialist.
- Industry projects under $50,000 can use a two-page sponsored-project agreement that most regional employers sign without sending it to their own lawyers.
- Internal seed money: the proposal-development fund (below) and the summer faculty research stipend, with applications due February 15.
Pre-award: proposal routing timeline
Every proposal leaves through ORSP, which is the only office authorized to submit on the university’s behalf. Count backward from the sponsor deadline in business days:
| When | What is due |
|---|---|
| 30 days before | Intent to submit, through MyPorter. ORSP assigns a pre-award officer. |
| 15 days before | Draft budget and justification. Cost share and space needs flagged. |
| 10 days before | Routing form approved by chair and dean; any cost share signed by the vice provost. |
| 5 days before | Final administrative pieces (budget, biosketches, letters, data plan) for ORSP review. |
| 2 days before | Final narrative. ORSP submits; you get the confirmation. |
Proposals that arrive after the five-day mark go in if there is time, without a full compliance review, and the principal investigator signs a statement saying so. Indirect costs are charged at the negotiated rate of 44 percent of modified total direct costs on campus and 26 percent off campus. The grant-writing support page lists workshops and the proposal-development fund, which pays up to $5,000 for preliminary data before a submission.
Post-award: managing the money
- A new award gets its own account within five business days of a signed agreement; ORSP will open an at-risk account up to 90 days early if the dean guarantees it.
- Purchases follow the usual procurement rules plus the sponsor’s; equipment over $5,000 is tagged and inventoried.
- Effort certification is twice a year. Paying a student from a grant goes through student employment like any other hire.
- Financial reports and closeout are prepared by post-award staff; technical reports are the investigator’s job, and ORSP sends reminders 60 and 30 days ahead.
Students looking for their own small grants should start with student research grants.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. The research office, its staff, its award totals and its indirect-cost rate are invented; no proposal can be routed here and no grant will arrive.