Our Team | Office of Research | UC Davis School of Medicine

Director of Grants Facilitation Unit
emchedin@health.ucdavis.edu

Erica Chédin is Director of the School of Medicine Office of Research Grants Facilitation Unit (GFU), comprised of herself and three additional PhD-level scientists that offer comprehensive grant writing instruction through various workshops and classes (Grant Writing I and II: CLH 208/209, KOHORT, R Award Program) as well as direct assistance and project management of all types of grant proposals. Chédin received her Ph.D. from UC Davis in the Department of Microbiology, under the mentorship of Stephen Kowalczkowski, distinguished professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, and of Molecular & Cellular Biology, on the study of DNA recombination processes in hyperthermophilic archaea. She published several papers during her MCB T32-funded graduate work, one book chapter, and received a patent for one of her purified proteins. Chédin completed her NIH F32-funded postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Myron Goodman, professor of Molecular Biology and Chemistry and Gerontology, at the University of Southern California, where she published two additional papers. She has been part of the Grants Facilitation Unit of the School of Medicine Office of Research for 23 years and has been instrumental in continually bolstering the funding portfolio of the School of Medicine, including the UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center and BIRCWH K12 programs (both continuously funded for over 20 years). She has published several papers in her GFU role and one book chapter. She was the recipient of the 2025 Staff Excellence in Mentoring Award from the UC Davis School of Medicine.

Research Development Specialist
hkobhi@health.ucdavis.edu 

Hardeep Obhi shapes robust research trajectories through mentorship, fostering research collaborations, and supporting strategic proposal development and critical review. As a Research Development Specialist, she works with individuals across the research career spectrum and specializes in guiding early-stage investigators. She earned her Ph.D. in Gerontology from Iowa State University where she was an NIH/NIA F31 predoctoral fellow studying cognitive aging and dementia using an interdisciplinary lens and longitudinal approaches. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Carolina Population Center where she continued to publish peer-reviewed research on healthy aging using interdisciplinary and epidemiological approaches. She co-leads the School of Medicine Office of Research KOHORT program with Erica Chédin and Jeffrey Engler and is a Co-Instructor with Chédin and Professor Sally Ozonoff (Instructor of Record) for Grant Writing I and II: CLH 208/209. Hardeep has been recognized for her efforts in mentoring and teaching through the UC Davis Health School of Medicine STAR award program.

Research Development Specialist
jaengler@health.ucdavis.edu

Jeffrey A. Engler, currently a Research Development Specialist in the Grants Facilitation Unit (GFU) at the UC Davis School of Medicine Office of Research, assists faculty to prepare their research proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has assisted with many multi-investigator center grants and program projects, individual awards, and is a co-instructor in the GFU-led KOHORT program, training early career investigators in writing and submitting K awards. Engler earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and was a postdoctoral scholar at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, supported by a fellowship from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He was a Biochemistry faculty member for 35 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, where he was also Research Integrity Officer and Associate Dean in the Graduate School; as Associate Dean, he managed professional development, grant writing and ethics training for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at UAB. He is a co-investigator on an NIH-funded research study on developing effective grant writing workshops for new faculty and is a grant writing coach for the National Research Mentoring Network and for the Leadership Alliance at Brown University.

Research Development Specialist
hkahughes@health.ucdavis.edu

Heather Hughes leads strategic proposal development and coordination of complex institutional training grant submissions. She also advises clinical, translational, and basic science investigators in preparing R-series research grants (R01, R21, R03). She co-leads the Faculty Development R01 Application Program and R01 Seminar Series with Erica Chédin and Professor Cyndi Schumann. Since joining the GFU team in 2022, she has supported several successfully funded institutional training grants, contributing to the strategic positioning of UC Davis School of Medicine research enterprise. She was recently recognized with a STAR Award for her contributions to the Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) suite of training grants. Hughes received her B.S. in Dietetics from Sacramento State University, where she received several scholarships, including the prestigious Faculty Endowment Award. She earned her Ph.D. in immunology at UC Davis where she was awarded multiple competitive fellowships, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the UC Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. In addition, she authored multiple NIH diversity supplements and assisted in writing and editing R-series grant proposals and collaborative grants during her graduate and post-doctoral studies. She has also published several first-author publications detailing her research on immune dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders.