Jessica Molesworth

Executive Director

Jessica Molesworth is the Executive Director of the EPSCoR/IDeA Foundation, managing day-to-day operations, including all administrative, managerial, and programmatic activities.  For more than 20 years, Mrs. Molesworth has worked with higher education coalitions and institutions with a focus on research, research infrastructure capacity, technology, and economic development.  She has extensive knowledge of federally sponsored research programs in areas ranging from defense and energy to health, water quality, and science education curriculum development.

Mrs. Molesworth first began working with the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program in 1993.  Since 1999, Molesworth has led the Coalition’s advocacy strategies for the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which grew from a $30 million program in 1999 to a $273 million program in 2014.

From 1996 until 1998, Molesworth worked as Senior Editor to the President of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Los Angeles and was closely involved with public outreach efforts related to a $484 million NASA contract awarded to USRA to design, build, test and operate the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.  Molesworth also worked on projects to match major launch providers with graduate and undergraduate students building satellites at the Association’s member institutions.

Mrs. Molesworth, a native of Virginia, received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Michigan.