Kelvin Chu is the President and Chief Operating Officer for The Implementation Group. He joined TIG in 2015 after serving as an NSF program officer for three years. Kelvin has significant experience with research development, program building, and administration of research capacity-building programs, in both academia and at the federal level. He brings expertise in evaluation and assessment, private sector initiatives, and cyberinfrastructure initiatives. Kelvin has worked to support faculty pursuing extramurally funded research by helping principal investigators and transdisciplinary teams of research faculty in their pursuit of funding. He has a deep familiarity with evaluation, assessment, and post-award management for research projects. As a former faculty member, research administrator, and program officer, Kelvin has first-hand knowledge of and experience in growing and supporting a research enterprise as well as practical knowledge of campus-based efforts to encourage faculty scholarship and extramural research funding.

At NSF, Kelvin managed projects worth $137 million in the physical, life, mathematical, and social sciences. Prior to this, Kelvin served as Senior Associate Director of a state-wide research initiative in Vermont, building research capacity and education infrastructure. As a faculty member, he received over $44 million to run large NSF- and NIH-funded centers. He was Senior Associate Project Director for the Vermont Genetics Network, a large-scale, multi-university NIH award, and Vermont EPSCoR. In addition, he was a member of the Executive Committee for the Northeast Cyberinfrastructure Consortium, a consortium of five states in the Northeast that collaborated on building regional cyberinfrastructure.

Kelvin holds a Sc.B. in Physics from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Lab.

Andrea serves in the capacity of Vice President for The Implementation Group. She brings over 20 years of proposal development, review, refinement, and production services to TIG clients. Andrea provides strategy and tactical support; internal proposal reviews; color teaming; virtual and on-site debriefs as well as proposal management and coordination services, including proposal templating, compliance tracking, direct editing, and proofing.

Over the last decade, Andrea has worked with principal investigators to develop and secure small-, medium-, and large-scale awards from the major federal agencies and private foundations. She previously served as a Press Assistant with the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Heather serves as a Vice President for The Implementation Group. She joined TIG in the fall of 2020 and provides guidance and leadership in strategic research planning, program assessment and evaluation, and peer review. At TIG, Heather leverages her interdisciplinary science training and research development and assessment experience to assist universities, research coalitions, and program leaders to advance STEM initiatives and build research excellence and capacity. A focus of her work is the design and implementation of independent evaluations and assessments of research infrastructure, institutional strategies and policies, and programmatic activities and impacts.

Prior to joining TIG, Heather served as Associate Director of the Research Competitiveness Program (RCP) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – the world’s largest general scientific society. At AAAS, Heather designed and led external reviews of large-scale, trans-disciplinary, federally funded STEM programs worth more than $900 million, and provided assessments of institutional research capacity to universities and government ministries in the U.S. and abroad to inform planning, portfolio development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community engagement. In addition, she developed grant policies and designed and managed peer review processes for universities, tech-based economic development organizations, and international funding agencies, and mobilized scientific and technical experts to review thousands of research proposals ranging in topic from regenerative medicine to high-energy physics. Prior to joining AAAS, she taught undergraduate science and social science courses at DePaul University, a comprehensive, urban liberal arts university in Chicago, Illinois.

Heather holds a M.S. in Quaternary Studies from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Oregon. Her independent archaeological research and international field research projects documented evidence of some of the earliest prehistoric coastal sites known in the Americas. The results were published in the journal Science (Science 281: 1830-1832).

Dr. Jessica Moon is a research development professional with nearly a decade of experience in grant strategy, faculty development, and biomedical innovation. She has supported competitive proposals to NIH, HRSA, CDC, NSF, DOD, biomedical foundations, and state/regional funders, with a focus on early career awards—including NIH K and F-series—and large, multidisciplinary initiatives.

Before joining TIG, Jessica served as Executive Director of the Longevity, Equity, and Aging Research Consortium at Stanford University, where she led grant development, built partnerships with universities and healthcare systems, launched a national multi-disciplinary seed funding program, and mentored early-stage investigators, helping grow the center into a national consortium. At the University of Arizona, she advised on more than 150 biomedical proposals totaling $31 million. Jessica has delivered 20+ workshops and writing bootcamps on grant proposal, funding strategy, and research rigor and reproducibility, drawing on her background as a writing coach, mentor, and facilitator. She also brings insight from health tech venture capital, where she evaluates startups, advises on SBIR/STTR strategy, and serves as a subject matter expert on biomedical innovation for investment funds.

She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, is PMP-certified, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP).

Eleanor serves in the capacity of Associate Vice President and Director of Business Operations for The Implementation Group. She has been with the firm since 2008 and oversees TIG’s business strategy ecosystem and suite of proposal development services. In her dual role, she is responsible for firm planning and positioning and collaborates with individual investigators and large-scale teams spanning multiple universities to position their ideas for funding that range from small- to large-scale. She is passionate about providing greater access and pathways for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Eleanor is an expert on developing competitive proposals to federal agency programs, particularly the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, among others. For more than a decade, she has helped clients build programs in states that are eligible to submit proposals to the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Prior to joining TIG, Eleanor designed and managed multidisciplinary programs for Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and Vanderbilt University’s Medical Center.

Eleanor received her BA in Political Science and Public Administration from Elon University in North Carolina.

Roberto is the Business Operations Manager for The Implementation Group. He joined TIG in 2023 following the completion of his master’s program. He manages the firm’s data analytics, finances, and contracts. He serves as TIG’s primary liaison with their vast network of subject matter experts.

Prior to joining TIG, Roberto worked as a research assistant for the University of Texas System Administration Office, an intern at the Department of Housing and Urban Development - Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), a teacher’s assistant at the University of Texas at El Paso, and a research economist for the Workforce Solutions Borderplex.

Roberto received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.S. in Economics with a certificate in Big Data Analytics from the University of Texas at El Paso. He was selected as a Bill Archer Fellow during his time at the graduate level.

Joe Danek co-founded TIG in 1994, after a 26-year career in the Senior Executive Service (SES) at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and was also the former Executive Director of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)/Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Foundation

Over his 26-year career at NSF he developed and helped launch 16 national programs in STEM research and education that extended from K-12 though faculty/institutional development. As the NSF Director of the Office of Systemic Reform, he managed an annual budget of over $140 million directed at improving K-12 STEM Education in rural and urban centers across the United States. In addition, he also founded and directed the agency’s EPSCoR Program and chaired the Federal-wide EPSCoR Interagency Coordinating Council. Prior to this, he was the Director, Human Resource Development Division, where he was involved in designing and directing the NSF’s initiatives to increase the participation of minorities, women, and persons with disabilities in STEM careers. Joe also served on several inter-agency senior management teams to broaden participation in science in the U.S.

He earned his B.S. degree from Mount St. Mary’s College (Maryland) and his Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Maryland, College Park.