Our next DOM Staff Spotlight is Chelsea Rock, CCRP, Research Regulatory Specialist and Clinical Research Coordinator IV in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine. Learn more about our colleague below!
Tell us about yourself. Where are you from?
I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska until I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 2017 with my husband for graduate school. I grew up in the Midwest but love living in the Southeast!
What is your professional background?
I earned my BS in psychology in Omaha and have since expanded my career in research. I spent the first several years after undergrad working in an autism center treating and studying children with challenging behaviors using applied behavior analysis. I worked in a family development lab, specifically understanding the dynamics of couples during pregnancy where I learned how to conduct clinical interviews. Stepping into clinical research coordination, I worked at a clinical research site conducting clinical trials for patients with mental health diagnoses. Later, I returned to autism research and worked at the Marcus Autism Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. For years I coordinated behavioral and pharmaceutical interventions for autistic children. After several years of working as a clinical research coordinator, I gained a Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) certification, which validates my knowledge and skills in clinical research and clinical trials.
By combining my expertise in autism, family systems, mental health, and knowledge in research coordination, I recently focused my interests on research regulations/operations and training research staff. Over the past few years, I gained experience training researchers and leading teams conducting clinical trials as a research educator by developing training programs and implementing standard practices to improve research conduct. Now, I get to continue this work on a clinical research team at Emory specializing in research regulations and training staff on various research topics. I am excited to apply my unique experience to my research team here!
What is your role at Emory?
I serve as a Regulatory Specialist and Clinical Research Coordinator IV in the School of Medicine, Department of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine (PACCSM) division. My primary role is to support the RADx Tech studies by managing regulatory activities, working with the IRB, and supporting other coordinators to run studies in compliance with the protocol and local/federal regulations. Outside of the RADx Tech team, I took on a new role within the PACCSM division, which includes supporting investigators interested in starting research studies (federally and industry-sponsored).
How long have you worked in the Department of Medicine?
I started in February 2024 and the time has flown by! I have thoroughly enjoyed the last few months discovering all the research that is happening in our department and meeting several exceptional investigators, coordinators, and administrators involved in these studies.
What are you currently working on? Any upcoming projects?
I am working on many innovative research projects! I spend the majority of my time working behind the scenes managing the regulatory side of task orders from the NIH’s RADx Tech Program and Atlanta Center for Microsystems-Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT). As we approach respiratory illness season, the public can access at-home tests to diagnose COVID-19 and Flu A/B simultaneously partly because of the work from our team! See this NIH article to learn more.
Other parts of my role are designed to help investigators begin industry-sponsored studies or obtain funding to initiate their own studies. Specifically, I am aiding Emory investigators with launching clinical trials, device validation, biorepositories, chart reviews, and more. I partner with Emory and Grady’s Research Administration Services, Office of Clinical Research, and Institutional Review Board to streamline the study start-up process. To learn more about our research, check out our PACCSM research centers and current projects!
What do you like to do for fun outside of work?
When I’m not at home cooking in the kitchen with my husband or playing with my two cats, I am out with friends playing board games, hiking around the Atlanta area, or tending to my garden. I enjoy how much there is to do in the city, so you can usually find me exploring on the Beltline!
Be the first to comment on "DOM Staff Spotlight: Chelsea Rock, CCRP"