Nancy Yovetich, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist who serves as the RhoCROMS PI/PD, earned both a master’s and doctoral degree in Experimental and Quantitative Social Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). She is currently the PI for the NIDCR Clinical Research Operations and Management Support contract. She began as the co-PI in early 2010 and transitioned into the PI role later that year. Dr. Yovetich successfully re-competed the CROMS contract in September 2014 for another 5 year project period and again in 2019. As the PI for the CROMS contract, Dr. Yovetich has led the efforts to develop clinical research tools and processes that support the NIDCR’s mission of providing cutting-edge dental and craniofacial clinical research. She has also supported numerous NIDCR-funded clinical studies as a research scientist, consulting on both protocol and other study material’s development and ongoing study operations.

In addition to her NIDCR-CROMS experience, she has honed her project leadership skills on multiple commercially funded and 2 federally funded multicenter clinical trials. For federal programs, she was the coordinating center PI for the “Treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension in Sickle Cell Disease with Sildenafil Therapy (walk-PHaSST)” study. Additionally, Dr. Yovetich led the coordinating center for the NHLBI-funded “Stroke With Transfusions Changing to Hydroxyurea” (SWiTCH) trial as the co-PI and project director. Her skills were further developed as leader of several complex “rescue operations” projects. Included in those rescue operations are (1) several studies in which Rho assumed data management or statistical computing responsibilities from another vendor during the middle of the clinical trial and (2) a complex project involving an effort to resolve issues delineated in a sponsor’s non-approvable letter from the FDA. She has been Program Director of a set of 8 dermatologic device studies; that program is currently in preparation of materials to support the 510K submission to CDRH. Dr. Yovetich has also managed a global effort among several related pharmaceutical companies to create a unified set of standard operating procedures. Such projects take advantage of excellent problem-solving and organizational and logistical skills, and they provide experiences that enhance a project leader’s repertoire of solutions from which to draw for future challenges. Her experience with commercial research has also enhanced her customer service orientation as well as her focus on achieving timeline projections.