Jennifer West promoted to chief audit officer and director of ORAU audit services. October 14, 2026 ORAU has promoted Jennifer West to chief audit officer and director of ORAU audit services, effective Oct. 10. West brings more than 30 years of professional experience to the role, including 27 years as a federal government contractor managing and conducting audits, assessments and investigations. She has been with ORAU since 2014. In her new role, West will oversee ORAU's audit function and report to both the ORAU President and CEO Meghan Millwood as well as the ORAU Finance and Audit Committee. "Jennifer has brought extensive experience and strong leadership to the audit services team during a critical period," said Millwood. "Her deep institutional knowledge and commitment to integrity have earned the confidence of colleagues across the organization. We are pleased to officially appoint her to this important leadership role." West earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a major in accounting from East Tennessee State University. She is a Certified Internal Auditor and a Certified Fraud Examiner.

ORAU Rural Health Research Innovation Cluster Workshop aims to bridge the rural health gap. For many Americans, access to quality health care depends on something as simple and as significant as geography. A hospital may be hours away. A specialist may only visit a community a few days each month. A shortage of health care workers can mean longer wait times, fewer services and difficult choices for families already facing challenges. But across rural communities, researchers, health care leaders, policymakers and innovators are working to change that reality. To help find solutions to the challenges affecting rural communities across the United States, ORAU convened its first-ever Rural Health Research Innovation Cluster (RIC) Workshop on Aug. 6, 2026. Cluster is an interesting word, right? In this case, think of a cluster as a grouping of like-minded people and educational institutions coalescing around a specific topic or idea. The workshop was designed around a simple idea: solving rural health challenges requires collaboration. It provided a space where more than 100 people-representatives from 30 member institutions of ORAU's University Consortium-shared ideas, sparked collaborations, began building partnerships and explored solutions that have the potential to improve health outcomes. Discussion and interactive sessions centered on four strategic priority areas: workforce development and retention, women's health, access to care, and preparedness and resilience. Workshop participants spent the morning individually identifying what they think are important issues and potential solutions, then worked in small groups during the afternoon to find areas of common interest and consensus around the idea of what could be accomplished a one-million-dollar grant. By bringing together experts from different disciplines and connecting researchers with communities, the RIC has the potential to identify new approaches to some of the most complex health issues facing rural America. It's important to note that the workshop is the very first step in the work of ORAU's Rural Health RIC, said Casey Thomas, ORAU strategic partnerships and engagement manager. Because ORAU boasts an extensive and engaged University Consortium, it was important to begin the process with members of our elite network of academic institutions. "Academic institutions play an important role in rural health innovation by serving as research partners, workforce development pipelines, innovation hubs, sources of technical expertise, and connectors between communities and resources," Thomas said. Universities can help identify emerging challenges, evaluate interventions and train the next generation of health professionals. Still, Thomas said there was an incredible outpouring of interest from community organizations, health care providers, industry partners and other stakeholders who want to get involved in the RIC's work. Thomas said, based on the input and data collected during the workshop, next steps could include additional workshops and the development of workgroups and project teams. "Stay tuned," she said. "There is so much more to come." Connecting the people closest to the challenges. One in five Americans lives in a rural community, and rural communities often face overlapping issues, including shortages of health care professionals, limited access to specialty services, geographic isolation, transportation challenges, aging infrastructure, economic barriers, and increasing demand for chronic disease management and preventive care. "These challenges are shaped by the unique needs of individual communities," said Brenda Blunt, ORAU senior director of public health solutions. "Rural health challenges are interconnected and cannot be addressed through a single intervention, which means there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these challenges." The complexity of rural health requires collaboration across disciplines, but experts working on rural health challenges often feel a sense of isolation because they don't know anyone else working on these issues. Such was the case of Bonnie Spring, Ph.D., Krafft Professor of Behavioral and Social Medicine and director of the Blue Cross Center for Rural Health Research and Policy at Florida State University. Spring said she has spent much of her career studying chronic disease risk behaviors in urban settings. Since taking on the role as director of the Blue Cross Center at FSU, Spring said she has been fascinated by and drawn to the unique challenges of rural health, particularly because of the lack of research and funding focused on these challenges. However, Spring felt like an island to herself. "I am completely isolated, I don't know other people who do work in that area, so this (the Rural Health RIC workshop) was a chance to find a community and learn what other people are doing, she said. Rather than working in isolation, RIC participants created connections between educational institutions that may approach rural health from different perspectives but share the same goal. The result is a stronger network focused on turning research into action. Networking and finding opportunities to collaborate was a critical takeaway from the workshop for Megan Undeberg, Ph.D., professor and assistant dean of Rural Health in the Department of Pharmacotherapy at Washington State University. "The best part of the day was seeing that lots of like-minded people exist across the United States," said Undeberg, who was in a breakout group on workforce recruitment and retention. "There were 17 or 18 people, and we all are thinking along the same lines and all having common goals. Now there's this group of people who can put our heads together to find funding, find shared opportunities and find ways to grow recruitment and retention of our rural health providers." Preparing for the future of rural health. The future of rural health will require creativity, partnership and a willingness to rethink traditional approaches. The Rural Health RIC Workshop represents an important first step toward building that future by creating a network where ideas can grow, partnerships can develop and research can move beyond the page and into communities. At its core, ORAU's Rural Health RIC is about connection - researchers with communities, ideas with opportunities, innovation with impact. Improving rural health is not just about addressing today's challenges, it's about building a stronger, more connected health care future for generations to come.

ORAU receives two National Safety Council awards for its commitment to occupational safety. June 24, 2026 ORAU has been recognized with two awards for achievement in occupational safety from the National Safety Council (NSC): the Occupational Excellence Achievement Award and the Six Million Work Hours Award. The Occupational Excellence Achievement Award is given to companies that record exceptional safety numbers during the previous calendar year. To qualify for this award, ORAU experienced zero fatalities during the previous calendar year, and our lost-workday case incident rate was equal to or less than 50% of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) rate for our industry, as classified by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code. ORAU's lost-workday case incident rate is 0.00 compared to the BLS industry average rate of 1.2. All data submitted to the NSC is self-reported and verified. ORAU received the Six Million Work Hours Award for continued work without the occurrence of an occupational injury or illness involving days away from work for at least six million consecutive work hours. The six-million-hour record was recorded between June 28, 2022, and March 31, 2026. Eligibility is based on self-reported data submitted by the participating workplace in accordance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. "We take great pride in our strong workplace safety record," said James Buckner, ORAU director of Environment, Safety and Health. "Being recognized with these awards serves as a testament to the outstanding teamwork, proactive communication, and commitment to safety that exists across every department in our company."