After leading Emory University's research enterprise since 2018, Deborah Watkins Bruner will step down from her role as senior vice president for research effective Dec. 31, 2025. A professor and Robert W. Woodruff Chair in Nursing, Bruner will pursue a year-long academic fellowship before returning to the School of Nursing faculty in 2027 to continue her focus on research innovation.
"Dr. Bruner has been transformative in advancing Emory as a leading research university," says Lanny Liebeskind, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. "She has provided clear, powerful, operational and data-driven leadership to Emory's research enterprise, strengthening our research infrastructure while fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. I am deeply appreciative of all she has done to support this vital component of our mission as a university."
Unprecedented growth in Emory's research enterprise
As SVPR, Bruner has overseen research support, training, innovation and commercialization services across the institution, leading the offices of Research Administration, Technology Transfer and Research Development while collaborating with university partners to ensure federal and other sponsor compliance, risk mitigation and research security.
A visionary leader, Bruner established initiatives that have become integral to Emory's research engine. She created specialized offices to enhance and streamline research capabilities, including the research compliance and regulatory affairs office, research quality improvement office, research data analytics office and training grant office. She formed the university's research council of associate deans from all schools and units, bringing together leaders to coordinate research efforts across the institution. She also established a faculty research advisory board to provide a forum for faculty input on research needs and opportunities.
Under her leadership, Emory's research enterprise has grown exponentially. The Office of the Senior Vice President for Research fostered increased faculty grant-seeking and portfolio diversification through new support programs, incentives and education, with awards growing by 56 percent during Bruner's tenure. For three consecutive years, sponsored awards have surpassed more than $1 billion and sponsored expenditures have crossed the billion-dollar mark for two years in a row.
She has worked diligently to lead the university research community through the COVID-19 pandemic and recent changes to federal funding and regulatory mandates. Despite the challenges, Emory faculty set a record $2 billion in proposal submissions for the 2025 fiscal year.
Bruner also streamlined procedures and amplified research updates to the community. She implemented a new grants management system to increase efficiencies and initiated new research communication channels to keep the community informed and engaged. She developed the Funding Fridays newsletter for faculty and staff and the Mission Metrics That Matter initiative to track and report research progress to faculty.
Championing public engagement in science
In addition to broadening Emory's research profile, Bruner has a deep commitment to engaging the public in science and supporting faculty with resources to share their research impact. She was instrumental in bringing the Science Gallery Network to Atlanta in 2020. Science Gallery Atlanta, which operated for more than five years and was the only U.S. member of the network, drew thousands of visitors to exhibits that combined science and art.
To support faculty in disseminating their research to the public, Bruner's office administered a research impact faculty fellowship, encouraging scholars to share the real-world benefits of their work. Additionally, the office partnered with Emory's Center for Public Scholarship and Engagement to sponsor Emory faculty at the Public Scholarship Academy, providing a crucial development opportunity for faculty to better understand how to communicate research impact beyond academic audiences. Most recently, the office launched Impact in Progress, a podcast to showcase research across the university.
Distinguished research career
Beyond overseeing Emory's research ecosystem, Bruner is an internationally renowned researcher and clinical trialist with a focus on patient reported outcomes, symptom management across cancer sites and comparative effectiveness of radiotherapy modalities. Her work in patient-reported outcomes (PROs) has led to national efforts to incorporate PROs as standard measures in clinical trials. Her research has been continuously funded for nearly three decades, ranking her in the top five percent of all National Institutes of Health funded investigators in the world, according to Blue Ridge Institute statistics.
Bruner's achievements earned her election to the National Academy of Medicine and designation as a fellow of the American Academy Nursing. In addition to multiple honors and awards for her research, she has been inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International's Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.
Bruner, who also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Emory's School of Medicine, will pursue a year-long academic fellowship before returning in 2027 to the faculty in the School of Nursing, where she plans to focus on research innovation.
"Leading the research enterprise at Emory has been a rewarding and fulfilling experience," says Bruner. "I am deeply proud of the work we have done to advance Emory as a preeminent research institution and support our faculty and staff in their groundbreaking and innovative scholarship and research. I look forward to watching the impact of their discoveries continue to grow."
Plans for leadership of the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research will be shared later this fall following a period of stakeholder engagement, according to Interim Provost Liebeskind.
