91吃瓜网

David Prottas is an Associate Professor and Vice President of Grievances for 91吃瓜网. He also happens to be wrapping up his last term as head of the IRB. Before bidding Dr. Prottas adieu, we sat down with him to get the nitty-gritty on the Adelphi IRB.

The following听 interview was edited and condensed.

JDK: You had an incredibly successful career in finance鈥� What made you get into academia?

DP: Well, I wouldn鈥檛 say I was tremendously successful, but I liked what I did. I was a banker. I was on the deals side. We鈥檙e all deal junkies, and I was on the deals side. After several years of听 chasing the deal, the high wasn鈥檛 high鈥攁nd it wasn鈥檛 lasting as long. I said to myself, 鈥淚 like what I鈥檓 doing now. But will I like it five or seven years from now? No, I won鈥檛. What then?鈥�

JDK: Ok, so what then?

DP: When I was working on my M.B.A., there was a faculty member who worked in the industry, then went back for his M.B.A., and then continued his education and ended听up a full professor. He was happy and dedicated to his new鈥攂ut related鈥攖ype of work. I figured, 鈥淚f he could do something like that, so can I.鈥�

JDK: Now that you made the professional transition, having gone back to graduate school for a Ph.D. in business and made your way to Garden City, let鈥檚 talk about your role here with the IRB鈥� For starters, why did you choose to serve the IRB, relative to other options?

DP: It鈥檚 easy. There was [a well-known professor whose methods were questioned] and his story hit newspapers the year I entered my doctoral program. That showed me that all researchers could use a second or third pair of eyes on their research.

JDK: I appreciate the need for a second or third pair of eyes. I鈥檓 sure that joining the IRB was not a fast-track to making friends in the university community鈥�

DP:听 Understandably, people can get upset with the听IRB. (鈥淗ow dare anyone second-guess me? I have extra knowledge.鈥�)

But the truth is that we all have cognitive biases; it makes it hard for people to properly and consistently evaluate themselves.

We humans are not good at that, especially when we know how bright and well-intentioned we are.

One of the reasons I got involved was that I found it interesting to see what other people鈥攕tudents and faculty鈥攁re doing on campus. There鈥檚 not a tremendous degree of interaction between schools. The IRB brings together folks from every part of campus.

JDK: When you reject an IRB proposal, is it like Trump saying, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e fired!鈥�? At least that鈥檚 how many folks feel when your office sends its rejection notices.

DP: Each application is examined in its entirety: methodology, questionnaire, setting, inclusion criteria, issues with coercion, where it takes place, and if harm takes place what effective remediation can be done.

The person submitting the IRB proposal can certainly feel rejected, but that鈥檚 not the goal 鈥� nor the sentiment we wish to imbue. So not so much a rejection issue 鈥� faculty get it, students don鈥檛 always. Their responsibility is to understand their research enough so that they under- stand their work with humans, and that they鈥檝e thought actively about this in their research design or remediation attempts.

JDK: Is there anything about applications from Derner that makes us unique in terms of IRB submissions?

DP: Derner is pretty much the only program, with rare exception, that uses experimental design.听 We have a lot of people doing survey-based quantitative research throughout the university (like the schools of Nursing & Social Work). Units like exercise science and communication disorders that do physical stuff.

JDK: Could you speak a bit to the streamlined 鈥渆xemption鈥� status?

DP: The past year, we鈥檝e changed our practices for classifying things as exempt. At this stage, a bit over half of the applications from Derner folk are classified as exempt. One of the things we鈥檝e been trying to do is streamline the process a bit for efficiency鈥檚 sake.

JDK: However, isn鈥檛 there a lot that鈥檚 not exempt? I heard that the IRB has concerns about Internet research.

DP: Clearly, people want to use it. It鈥檚 cheaper than paper/pencil, theoretically opens up [research] to the entire world of participants (there鈥檚 even Amazon Turk, where one can pay for participants). And finding in-person participants is horribly difficult and painful. I think the tensions come from what the researchers want to ask people. These are potentially sensitive and disturbing questions for these people. We don鈥檛 care particularly if you鈥檙e doing this on paper/pencil or online, but gosh鈥攚e think it鈥檚 really important that you know that the person can obtain mental health assistance鈥�and that you can facilitate it. Yes, there鈥檚 friction.

JDK: Would you say that methodology and graduate-level research are your biggest concern as head of听 the IRB?

DP: It comes down to the human subjects. Look at a questionnaire, for example. If you have five measures, and five sets of questions being asked at the same time, what鈥檚 the impact on the person? Is it relevant?

We see submissions where people remark on a particular instrument in isolation and say, 鈥渋t鈥檚 no undue stress,鈥� but what about when we are using five different instruments during the same moment of data collection? What might be the cumulative impact?

JDK: When you were working on your Ph.D. dissertation in business what challenges did you face in conceptualizing your study?

DP: My study went through the IRB without a problem.

*Please note that no human subjects were compromised at any time during this interview.