Christina McDonald is an accomplished research development and higher-education leader with more than two decades of experience advancing institutional research capacity, securing external funding, and guiding large-scale academic initiatives. She currently serves as Director of Research Development at Yale University, where she leads strategic research advancement efforts, supports high-impact proposal development, and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across the university’s scholarly community.
Before joining Yale, Christina spent nearly ten years as Director of the Office of Sponsored Projects and Research and Assistant to the Provost for Research at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, where she oversaw all sponsored research functions and served as a key member of the Provost’s senior leadership team. In that role, she expanded annual grant submissions by 83%, secured major federal awards—including a U.S. Department of Education Title III award and multiple NSF S-STEM grants—and strengthened university-wide infrastructure to support faculty scholarship, research communications, and diversity-focused initiatives. Her experience also includes serving as Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs at Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education, where she helped scale system-wide academic policy innovations to improve student retention and success.
Christina’s earlier career includes progressively responsible leadership, research, and project-management roles with the Open Society Foundations and Marywood University, where she managed multi-country educational initiatives, designed distance-learning programs, oversaw grantmaking portfolios, and led international research and evaluation projects across Eastern, Central Europe and Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Arts in Comparative and International Education Policy from the University of Pittsburgh and is completing her Doctor of Education in Higher Education Leadership at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. Throughout her career, she has been recognized for her ability to turn complex challenges into strategic, collaborative solutions that strengthen institutions, advance equity, and expand opportunities for students and scholars worldwide.