The Award Acceptance & Contract Negotiation Team is focused on ensuring the university’s success in managing grants and awards effectively. Tasked with reviewing the terms and conditions of every award received, this team plays a crucial role in safeguarding the university’s interests while maximizing the goals of each researcher.
Team members review the details of each award, including budgetary constraints, compliance requirements and reporting obligations. In assessing these factors, staff members identify potential challenges and opportunities, enabling the university to make informed decisions and achieve optimal outcomes. In addition to reviewing awards, the team also issues subawards and initializes the award setup process. This requires coordination with external stakeholders, external partners and funding agencies to ensure seamless execution and adherence to regulatory requirements.
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Jamie Aldag
Jamie’s work focuses on reviewing and processing new awards and amendments and assisting
with awards setup.
Jamie joined the university in 2015 and has held several positions focused on providing grant
and finance support to faculty and staff. In 2021, she joined Sponsored Programs as a project
specialist on the Post-Award Team, and in 2024 transitioned to the Awards Team. She holds a
bachelor’s degree in studio art, with minors in art history and English, from Nebraska.
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Heather Hulinsky
Heather reviews and processes incoming awards, agreements and contracts, and amendments, communicating with faculty and staff to ensure terms and conditions support each researcher’s goals. She also negotiates terms of complex agreements, drafts agreements for incoming awards and manages incoming material transfer agreements. Her role also includes training incoming awards coordinators and developing processes, standard operating procedures and training manuals for her team’s tasks.
Heather joined the university in 2010 and held various roles related to grants and finance before joining Sponsored Programs in 2022. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a minor in anthropology, from Nebraska.
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Aurora Kenworthy, JD
Aurora drafts, reviews and negotiates awards between the university and government entities, nonprofits and other educational institutions. She ensures the terms and conditions of awards adhere to state and federal law, university policies and the needs of Husker researchers. Aurora collaborates with sponsors and colleagues across the university to facilitate agreements that foster productive partnerships and support university researchers.
Before joining Sponsored Programs, Aurora was a research assistant and research fellow at the Nebraska College of Law, where she earned a Juris Doctor degree. Aurora also has a bachelor’s degree in history from Nebraska.
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Kristen Ohnoutka
Kristen is responsible for processing awards, amendments and agreements and setting up Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, numbers for projects, a process that helps organize and categorize project tasks.
Before starting her current role, Kristen was a finance and grants specialist in the Filley Hall Business Center, a unit within the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Prior to that, she was a financial specialist on the Research Finance team in the Office of Research and Innovation. Kristen holds an associate degree in criminal justice from Hamilton College.
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Bailey Rosberg, JD
Bailey negotiates, reviews and processes awards, material transfer agreements and data transfer agreements. She negotiates contract terms with involved parties and resolves any contractual disputes that arise.
Bailey’s previous work experience includes reviewing legal contracts at law firms, including Bartle & Geier in Lincoln. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Nebraska and a Juris Doctor degree from the Nebraska College of Law.
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Brian Sabata, JD
Brian brings legal and contracts expertise to his role as leader of the Award Acceptance and Contract Negotiation Team, which manages the acceptance and negotiation processes for grants, contracts and other sponsored awards. This involves reviewing award terms, ensuring compliance with regulations and policies, negotiating terms and conditions with sponsors, and coordinating with internal stakeholders. Brian provides guidance and support to faculty and staff regarding award acceptance procedures, legal considerations and other requirements. He also provides strategic direction in optimizing award terms, facilitates communication between sponsors and university personnel, and contributes to the overall success of sponsored projects by fostering efficient and effective award management practices.
Brian earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Nebraska and a law degree from the Nebraska College of Law. Prior to joining the university, he was a business affairs manager in Los Angeles focused on reviewing, drafting and negotiating domestic and international film production and distribution agreements.
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Samantha Swanson, MA
Samantha is responsible for subaward administration, which includes risk assessments, subrecipient monitoring, and drafting and processing outgoing subawards. Her work requires collaboration with a variety of people, including researchers, department personnel and the OSP Award Acceptance and Contract Negotiation Team. She also partners with post-award colleagues to manage the financial aspects of subawards.
Samantha started in Sponsored Programs as a student worker, gaining experience in pre- and post-award functions. After graduating from Nebraska with a bachelor’s degree in English, she took a full-time role in OSP focused on transferring paper files to electronic files and managing Personnel Activity Reports. She progressed to processing subawards and negotiating awards, which led to her current position. She worked at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Sponsored Programs office from 2022 to 2024, then returned to UNL. She also holds a master’s degree in English from Nebraska.
