Our Team
​Successful proposals are strong in all aspects of the process. Fiorini & Associates has considerable experience with all stages of proposal development across a broad range of topics. Our team has served as PI, co-PI, or senior personnel on successful grants totaling more than 25 million dollars. The team has been instrumental in the administration of additional grants, ranging between $5,000 and 15 million dollars and have covered topics as diverse as mathematics, education, biology, computer science, genetics, forensics, cybersecurity, environmental science, sustainability, and international state-to-state initiatives (USAID).
Eugene (Gene) Fiorini is the founder and director of Fiorini & Associates. He is the Muhlenberg College Truman Koehler Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and a former Associate Director for the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) at Rutgers University. Dr. Fiorini has authored research papers in graph theory, combinatorial number theory, and mathematics education, as well as several textbooks, book chapters, and educational modules with an applications-based approach. He has been involved with many projects at the intersection of research, applications, and education.
Dr. Fiorini has over 25 years’ experience developing, collaborating on, and administering a broad range of proposals from local niche grants to major international/national efforts in multiple STEM fields and educational disciplines. He has sat on NSF grant review panels. He has been Principal Investigator, Co-PI, or Key Personnel on grants from the NSF, DHS, DoD, DoT, NIH, National Research Experience, USAID, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Mathematical Association of America, Trexler Foundation, Burroughs-Wellcome, New England Biolabs, and the International Union of Biological Sciences. Areas of particular success include multiple REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) programs; and assistance provided to non-profit organizations for developing research and education proposals with an emphasis on increasing participation among underrepresented groups in STEM fields.
Dr. Fiorini holds MS and PhD degrees in Mathematics from the University of Delaware, and an MS in Statistics from Temple University. For more information, including a list of Dr. Fiorini’s grants, click here.
Jack Jarmon is a senior associate who leads F&A’s partnership and marketing efforts. Dr. Jarmon has taught international relation courses at the University of Pennsylvania, the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, and Rutgers University where he was also Associate Director of the Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis - a Center of Excellence of the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Division.
Dr. Jarmon served as an administrator overseeing a USAID grant in excess of $600 million. As part of this grant, he was USAID technical advisor for the Russian government in the mid-1990s. During its economic transition period, he worked for the Russian Privatization Committee, and with such organizations as the US Russia Investment Fund, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and various money center banks. His private sector career includes global consultant firms, technology companies, and financial institutions. He was a manager with Arthur Andersen in Moscow and Director of Strategic Alliances at Nortel Networks, Brampton, Ontario.
Dr. Jarmon holds a doctoral degree in Global Affairs from Rutgers University. He studied Soviet and Russian affairs at Fordham University and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, and is fluent in Russian. He has authored or co-authored five books, which are currently core texts for international and security studies programs in the US and abroad. Click here for a full biography.
Gail Marsella
Gail Marsella leads proposal writing and editing for F&A clients in the non-profit sector. Ms. Marsella worked in several capacities in the chemical industry, including IT, business analysis, competitive intelligence, environmental laboratory, and freelance technical writing. She taught chemistry, writing seminars, and environmental science to beginning learners at Muhlenberg College for over 20 years.
Constant threads through this varied experience are education, analysis, and the written word. Just in the past five years, collaboration on proposal development resulted in eight of nine grant proposals ultimately funded.
Ms. Marsella holds an MS degree in Chemistry from Butler University and has a Developmental Editing Certificate from the University of Chicago.
Bruce Newsome
Dr. Bruce Oliver Newsome is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas Permian Basin. He is the author of “Security and Risk Management” (second edition, Perseublishing, 2023), “Homeland Security and Emergency Management” (second edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), “Countering New(est) Terrorism” (CRC Press, 2018), “Research, Analysis, and Writing” (Sage, 2015), and more than 20 other books. He previously held standing faculty positions at the University of San Diego, University of California Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.
Before teaching, he spent five years at the RAND Corporation, advising national and local governments on defense, security, risk, training, and organizational structure and behavior. His commentaries appear in respected and influential publications in the US and UK. A brief sampling of outlets includes International Policy Digest, Defence IQ, Modern Age, Cieo, Comment Central, and Reaction Magazine.Dr.
Newsome is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy, participates in Infragard and the Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force, and is certified in Infrastructure Liaison and open-source intelligence.
Jean L. Scholz
Jean L. Scholz leads F&A’s proposal development workshop development initiative. A retired scientist and biology educator, Dr. Scholz is a contributing author on 33 peer-reviewed research and review articles or book chapters, and recently guest-edited special issues of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology and Frontiers in Immunology.
Dr. Scholz was previously awarded two pilot research grants from Penn's Center for AIDS Research. She is familiar with the grant proposal development, review, and reporting practices of funding agencies ranging from the NIH and DoD to foundations and pharmaceutical companies.
Jean holds a PhD in Genetics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Thea Harrington
Thea Harrington leads F&A's proposal development in the Arts and Humanities. As Provost at Keystone College, Dr.Harrington collaborated on and oversaw both discipline-specific grants in support of faculty work and those that involved partnerships with external entities. The granting agencies included The Pennsylvania Department of Education, State of Pennsylvania, local museums and private foundations. Of specific interest to her is partnerships between the humanities and the sciences (STEAM) in the arts and in emergent technologies such as 3D printing, glass arts, and prosthetics.
Thea Harrington holds a Phd in Comparative Literature from the Unversity at Buffalo. She has 25 years experience in Higher Education, as faculty member and an administrator.
Our Advisory Council consists of government, industry, and academia experts with experience in all phases of grant proposal development, higher education administration, and research across the sciences and the arts. The Council offers advice on best practices in proposal development, current trends in higher education, developing research topics in STEM-related fields and the arts.
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Council members have served on review panels for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and professional organizations. They include corporate and financial leaders, entrepreneurs, National Science Foundation division directors, directors of research labs and centers, and leaders within the performing arts, as well as university presidents, provosts, deans, and faculty.
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Click here for a list of Advisory Council members and their biographies.