Office of Research and Economic Development:University of North Texas

Richard "Rick" Nader, Ph.D.

Director of Research Development

Richard "Rick" Nader joined the Office of Research and Economic Development at the University of North Texas in September 2008 after serving a 3-year term as Program Director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of International Science and Engineering.  Responsibilities at NSF included advice and support for the Director and senior administrators regarding NSF activities in China, responding to Congressional requests, editing and contributing to publications on Asia S&T, authoring and revising RFPs, overseeing proposal processing, review, selection and management of a portfolio of 700 projects totaling 12 million dollars in federal contributions supporting  U.S. universities conducting research across all NSFdirectorates. Concurrently, Nader administered the East Asia Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI), which funds 200 fellowships each year to U.S. Graduate Students conducting independent research. The EAPSI is NSF's flagship exchange program, managed bilaterally with NSF's counterpart S&T agencies in seven countries, in Asia and the Pacific Rim. 

Previously, Nader held several positions supporting faculty to seek and secure extramural funding at Texas A&M University, including: Director of the Institute for Pacific Asia, Founding Director of the Center for Community Support, and Senior Research Associate at the Public Policy Research Institute.

Nader has a Ph.D. (2005) in Higher Education, and 10 year’s experience teaching proposal development at the graduate level.  Nader has helped secure over $15 million in competitive, extramural (public, private and foreign) funding, primarily from federal sources, including:
U.S. Department of Education
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
U.S. Department of Justice
U.S. National Science Foundation
U.S. State Department

Nader's research inerests include public understanding of science-particulalry cross-cultural issues in the public attitudes toward "controversial" technologies (e.g., GMOs, Nanotechnology, etc.). Nader has served as PI or Co-PI on numerous international student and faculty research and exchange projects funded by the NSF, U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Education and presently supports UNT faculty to pursue funding across a broad number of fields, including the Arts, Education, Humanities, and Social Sciences.