Shelley Bizila, a well-respected thought leader in research compliance who has extensive experience serving researchers at Indiana University, has been named IU’s associate vice president for research compliance after a national search.

Shelley Bizila. Photo courtesy of Shelley Bizila Bizila now leads the Office for Research Compliance and oversees efforts to ensure that researchers across all IU campuses comply with state and federal laws and university policies regarding safety and ethical conduct. She served as the interim associate vice president from August 2024 to January 2025. The position includes oversight over the human research projection program, the animal care and use research programs, biosafety, radiation safety, conflict of interest, and research integrity.

“Shelley Bizila is a nationally recognized leader in research compliance with decades of experience supporting IU researchers,” IU Vice President for Research Russell J. Mumper said. “She has led many critical divisions of the Office for Research Compliance and has proven adept at collaborating successfully across multiple units at IU and with other institutions of higher education on highly sensitive matters.”

In addition to ensuring IU complies with laws and university policies, the Office for Research Compliance has other responsibilities, including:

• Collaborating with research leadership across the university, accrediting bodies and oversight agencies.
• Working with research compliance program leaders to make sure IU’s policies and processes are monitored and meet regulations.
• Supervising and supporting research compliance offices and their personnel.
• Developing and providing training and education for all IU employees on research compliance requirements and best practices.

“I’m incredibly excited to lead a wonderful group of research compliance professionals during this time of unprecedented growth of research at IU,” Bizila said. “My main goal is to support those professionals to ensure they have the knowledge and resources to help facilitate research in our ever-changing compliance environment. Such support for our compliance professionals is integral to providing a service-oriented compliance environment for our IU research community.”

Bizila has held multiple positions within the Office for Research Compliance. She developed and led IU’s first Research Integrity Office, serving as its director from June 2014 to August 2024. She oversaw the education and training for responsible conduct of research for all IU campuses and investigated allegations of research misconduct. She has been the university’s research integrity officer since July 2012.

She was also director of the Human Research Protection Program, the largest division in the office, for 10 years. That role included overseeing compliance related to human subjects, biosafety and biohazard research.

Her accomplishments also include creating an IU-wide webinar series on research integrity in 2020-21 that had more than 2,000 participants.

Bizila earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from IU Bloomington in 1992 and a master’s in adult education from IU’s Indianapolis campus in 2001. She’s been an adjunct faculty member in the Fairbanks School of Public Health since November 2013.

Kirk Johannesen is a communications consultant for the Office of the Vice President for Communications and Marketing.