Kenneth W. Sewell, Vice President for Research
and President of the OSU Research Foundation

Kenneth Sewell joined Oklahoma State University as the Vice president for Research at Oklahoma State University in 2015. Additionally, he serves as the President of the OSU Research Foundation.  In these roles, he is responsible for the policies, offices, service units, and affiliated entities that support and promote research, scholarship, creative artistry, technology transfer, and IP commercialization at OSU. As a member of OSU’s senior leadership team, Dr. Sewell actively engages with the president, provost, other vice presidents, and deans to ensure that research is supported, promoted, and integrated throughout the entire mission of the institution. In the context of public higher education, Dr. Sewell views research as the engine that drives all persons engaged in and with it—whether they are faculty researchers, students, community participants/partners, or societal consumers—to the vanguard of change, transformation, and progress. With this guiding philosophy, Dr. Sewell conceptualizes research as a vital catalyst: what faculty and students do today that was not yet conceived (let alone printed in a textbook) yesterday AND that will propel scientific, social, and economic progress into the future.
 
As President of the OSU Research Foundation, a 501(c)(3) entity wholly owned by OSU, Dr. Sewell leads the technology transfer and licensing enterprise, as well as Cowboy Technologies—a commercialization and investment subsidiary designed to strategically facilitate transforming OSU-owned intellectual properties into start-up companies. In addition to providing investment resources to select companies and inventions, Cowboy Technologies delivers business development services and entrepreneurship training via a partnership with OSU’s NSF-funded I-Corps program.
 
In addition to his roles within OSU, Dr. Sewell is active in research leadership at the state and national levels. Within Oklahoma, he currently serves on the Governor’s Science and Technology Advisory Council, and on the Oklahoma EPSCoR State Advisory Committee. He held similar positions in Louisiana during his tenure at the University of New Orleans. Nationally, Dr. Sewell serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ Council on Research (CoR), and is a workgroup lead for CoR’s Public Impact-focused Research initiative.
 
Coming from the faculty ranks himself, Dr. Sewell is a staunch advocate for faculty researchers and the transforming power that research experiences can have on students. A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Sewell was trained within a scientist-practitioner framework that blends hard-nosed behavioral science research alongside professional competencies in the assessment, prevention, and treatment of psychopathology. He had many years of academic research, teaching, professional training/mentoring, and administrative experience before his move into university-level research leadership. His own research focused on posttraumatic stress, bereavement, personality assessment, and a variety of forensic psychology topics such as competency to stand trial, malingering, and factors affecting comprehension of Miranda rights. Dr. Sewell has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, in addition to several edited books, psychological tests, and test manuals.
 
Dr. Sewell received his B.S. from Kansas State University. He then received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Following a clinical internship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Sewell joined the faculty at the University of North Texas in 1991. In 2008, he entered central research leadership full time, first as associate vice president for research and then as interim vice president for research at UNT before moving to the University of New Orleans as the vice president for research and economic development as well as the executive director of the Graduate School. In 2015, Dr. Sewell joined the OSU team and moved to Stillwater with his wife, Beth, where they now make their home.

Ronald Van Den Bussche, Associate Vice President for Research 

Dr. Van Den Bussche serves as the associate vice president for research. Prior to this he served as the associate dean for research in the College of Arts & Sciences at Oklahoma State University. A Regents Professor of Zoology and former interim head of the Department of Zoology, Dr. Van Den Bussche earned his Ph.D. in zoology from Texas Tech University followed by postdoctoral positions at the University of Idaho and Texas Tech. He was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellowship in 2005 to study at the Museum and Institute of Zoology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Dr. Van Den Bussche received the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Professor Award in 1999.

Toni S. Shaklee, Assistant Vice President for Sponsored Research

Dr. Shaklee is responsible for policy development and implementation, pre-award activities, post-award nonfinancial activities, review and approval for sponsored project proposals and awards, and oversight for the Henry Bellmon Research Center. She also serves as the university’s facility security officer. Previously, Dr. Shaklee worked as the assistant director of research for the OSU College of Arts & Sciences Research Support Services. She also worked as a staff scientist for Science Applications International Corporation in Columbus, Ohio, and as the publications editor for the OSU Division of Agriculture. Dr. Shaklee earned her Ph.D. in environmental science from OSU. She is a certified pre-award research administrator and a certified research administrator.

Dawn Underwood, Assistant Vice President for Research Compliance

Dr. Dawn Underwood earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Indiana State University. She attended Ball State University in Indiana where she earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees. In 2017, Underwood was granted a fellowship award from the National Council for University Research Administration to travel to Hungary and learn about grants and compliance in the European Union. She is a member of the Association for Research Integrity Officers, and previously served as an advisory board member to the Grants Resource Center of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Pratul Agarwal, Assistant Vice President for Research Cyberinfrastructure
and director of high-performance computing

Dr. Agarwal earned his doctorate in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi in India for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemical engineering and biotechnology.

Most recently, Agarwal was a research professor for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and an adjunct faculty member in physiological sciences at OSU.

He also served as the senior research and development scientist in the computer science and mathematics division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for six years.

Agarwal’s experience with high-performance computing began in 1999 while he was a graduate student at Notre Dame. At a time when no manuals or books existed for high-performance computing clusters, he designed and maintained a 50-node Linux cluster, later moving it to Penn State and expanding it.

Amy Dronberger, Director of Research Programs

Dr. Dronberger manages multiple donor-based scholar programs, research communications efforts and the Tier 1 Research Initiatives, the strategic, internal investment program implemented specifically to address societal issues impacting Oklahoma and beyond. Prior to her current position, Amy spent seven years working for the OSU Research Foundation across multiple roles focused on sponsored program management and technology development and commercialization. She earned her Ph.D. in Agricultural Education in 2013 from Oklahoma State University