Michelle Watkinson

Michelle Watkinson is the director of the Arts and Sciences Institutional Review Board (IRB) within the Research Regulatory Affairs unit at the Office of Research and Economic Development. Michelle has over 15 years of experience within the compliance and regulatory affairs arena and has been at Rutgers since August 2007 primarily handling social-behavioral-education-humanities research. She obtained her Certified IRB Professional (CIP) certification in 2016.

Prior to joining Rutgers, Michelle was a program assistant in the Institutional Review Board at the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) - New Brunswick campus, where her work included providing guidance and counseling on federal regulations and ethical issues related to the conduct of biomedical research. Before UMDNJ, she spent five years working on several grant-funded, social-behavioral research projects at the University of Hartford and UCONN Medical School (Family Medicine Research Division & Community Medicine and Health Care).

Michelle has published several articles, as well as spoken extensively on issues pertaining to biomedical and behavioral research and human subjects’ protection. She did her graduate work at the University of Hartford and received her BA from Montclair State University.