Congratulations to Cynthia Bradford for Winning the 2022 Perkins Award

Congratulations to Cynthia Bradford for winning the 2022 John S. Perkins Award for her outstanding long-term service at the College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology. As a proposal development specialist, Cindy has gathered grant proposals, which have received 70 awards, totaling over twelve million dollars in funding within the past year alone. According to CAS Professor and former Chair of Biology Kimberly McCall, Cindy’s ability to gather potential grants for faculty and review final applications saves Biology faculty hours of time.

In 1982, Cindy started her work at BU as an Administrative Assistant for a recently formed neuroscience research center called Adaptive Systems. She held multiple titles such as assistant director of the Center for Adaptive Systems and Administrative Director of the Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST), Associative Director of the Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet), and Editorial Assistant for the international journal Neural Networks. By 2015, she began working with BU Biology Department as the Proposal Development Specialist for the Department of Biology. Cindy describes her experience as, 

“One that no one else had held before. I had the responsibility and also the pleasure of designing and implementing  the administrative procedures.”

Since 2016, she has served as one of the inaugural members of the BU-wide Advisory Council on Research Administration (ACRA). 

When asked about her reaction about receiving the reward, Cindy replied, 

“I felt very humbled and still do. Of course, I would hope to be doing a good job always but to be recognized by colleagues and in such glowing terms is a moment to treasure. It’s also important to say here that sponsored research is always a group effort and several BU colleagues, in particular, deserve public thanks for any success I have enjoyed. Cynthia Kowal and Dolores Markey have been valued mentors, and in more recent years Danielle Van Vooren has been invaluable for her guidance and support during my time in Biology.“

Starting this September, Cindy formalized her retirement from BU. In conclusion of her career in the Department of Biology, she states,

“The work has been fascinating. I’m going to miss the intellectual stimulation—and seeing the baby geese along the Charles each spring—but I will miss the people the most, some of whom have become good friends over the years.“

Congratulations Cindy, and thank you for everything!