Staff Excellence: Human Research Protection Program team

Purdue’s Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) team is on a mission to streamline the regulatory journeys of researchers across the university.

An integral part of the Office of Research’s regulatory affairs group, the HRPP team is charged with ensuring that all research involving human participants is conducted ethically and in a manner that promotes their rights and welfare. In addition to informing and educating faculty, staff and students, the team facilitates the submission of research protocols to Purdue’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the postapproval monitoring of studies.

Led by Sarah Abney since 2024, the team includes Schelly Decker, Alayna Espinoza, May Hamdani, Sandy Mason, Jennifer Riddick, Angelina Riggs, Brenda Navarrete Sanchez, Wendy Snider and Jessica Christian. In addition, team members and professors Jeffrey Haddad and Dan Foti serve as the IRB’s chair and associate chair, respectively.

“During the past year, our team has placed an extra-heavy focus on increasing dialog with research faculty to better understand — and address — their needs,” Abney said. “Our focus is serving research teams by helping them navigate the regulations and giving them a clear path forward while also upholding the highest of ethical principles to protect research participants.”

A new HRPP website offers protocol writing assistance, easy access to key documents, and a variety of training materials and workshops. Beginning in 2024, the team started open office hours at which faculty may bring their questions and concerns and get one-on-one assistance from the chairs and protocol analysts.

“Working with feedback from faculty, we understood that increased accessibility to IRB experts and transparency about the IRB processes and timelines were really critical,” said Jamie Mohler, associate vice president for scientific integrity and research compliance. “The team has strong customer focus to help research teams operate with better and more timely information.”

Abney added, “We are looking forward to moving our protocol management into the new PERA (Purdue Excellence in Research Administration) system in the fall of this year. By centralizing research projects into just one system, PERA will benefit researchers by providing greater transparency into each stage of their study review.”

For more information, visit the HRPP website and contact that team at irb@purdue.edu.