Kate Von Holle

Senior Director, Federal Research

I enjoy acting as a resource for faculty. My job allows me to learn about many different topics, and encourages me to be able to communicate that information to a broad variety of audiences.

Spending the past eight years of my career in Washington DC, working with the sole aim to understand the workings of the executive and legislative branches has prepared me for the unique challenge of navigating the federal agencies on behalf of the University of Chicago. I spent my first year in Washington as a science fellow at the State Department, learning the intricacies of international science policy with regard to marine conservation issues. Moving on to work at a scientific non-profit like the American Geophysical Union prepared me to work with scientists, and helping them communicate with their Congressional delegations and informing of them of new developments in science policy and funding. Lastly, my previous position working for the UK government at the British Embassy in Washington DC allowed me to work with a broad swath of the science agencies, engaging them on many different levels, leading me to develop an in-depth understanding of how they operate. All of these experiences gave me unique insights which have informed my work at RDS.

I appreciate trying out the variety of restaurants that DC has to offer, as well as working off those calories by getting outdoors whenever possible in a variety of pursuits which include running, co-ed softball, and surfing.  

B.S. Biology, College of William & Mary, full athletic scholarship for basketball, M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois, full academic fellowship.

Elena Zinchenko

Director of Research Innovation and Interim Executive Director

I love research for its systematic capacity for surprise and beauty. It is also a framework for how to change the status quo - something that I have been engaged in my whole life.

Growing up in Northern Siberia, I tried to challenge the way things were done – I did it by co-founding some of the first non-profit organizations in the area. After coming to the US on a scholarship, I worked with hi-tech startups to push forward the adoption of new technologies. I went to graduate school because cognitive science is reframing some age-old philosophical views about the relation between the mind and the brain. For my doctorate, I studied abstract thinking development in young children, and in my post-doctoral studies I worked on determining the brain activation signatures that support metaphoric thinking across lifespan. I now run the Big Ideas Generator at RDS - supporting early-stage, risky and very ambitious research projects. It speaks to my intellectual passions and my impatience about making things better and more fun.

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science, Booth School of Business; Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago; Doctorate in Human Development and Psychology, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Sarah Kirstine Lain

Assistant Director for Research Innovation (BSD Point Person)

A lifelong learner, I came to research because I found inquiry to be a rich foundation for generating programs that inform society, industry, and human thought. My passion is process-oriented development for projects that drive connections in creative, scientific, and computational thinking. For the past decade, my background has entailed development work in academia, software development, and simulation engineering industries. Formerly at Canadian Aviation Electronics, I managed global defense industry proposals for flight, ground, and emergency simulation training systems. I have also been a technical writer in learning and enterprise resource management software industries and have taught business, technical, and creative writing courses at the Art Institute of Tampa. Most recently at the UChicago Research Computing Center, I managed NSF, NIH, and NIJ research proposals for Principal Investigators in Molecular Engineering, Chemistry, Radiology, Geophysical Sciences, Linguistics, Social Sciences, and the National Labs. I hold a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Lesley University, and in my (theoretical) downtime, I edit a poetry publication called Poems2go, located in over thirty strategic public spaces across the U.S.

Karen Kim