Barnwell Named Manager of Northwestern IRB Office

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Carla Barnwell has been appointed manager of social and behavioral sciences in the Northwestern University Institutional Review Board (IRB) Office for the Protection of Research Subjects.

IRB reviews planned research dealing with human subjects with an aim to protect the welfare and rights of research subjects.

Barnwell previously worked in the Office of the Vice Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she helped manage IRB functions, including serving on the IRB and shepherding research proposals through the committee. She worked with researchers to help them address human subject issues during the grant writing phase, complete IRB applications, address questions from the IRB, and increase awareness of research ethics in discussions with students and faculty.
She also worked with a number of departments to standardize student subject pool management, the management of exempt studies and the training of incoming graduate students in research ethics.

Prior to working in the vice chancellor’s office, she had been teaching and writing in the life sciences at Illinois. She helped develop and manage undergraduate majors' courses and curricula in biology, including a special teaching initiative aimed at retaining high-achieving students from small high schools. Barnwell also spent several years as a freelance editor of scientific journals.