The OIRC staff

Melissa Thompson is the Executive Director of the Office of Integrity and Responsible Conduct (OIRC) at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) and serves as the Deciding Official for cases involving research/scholarly or professional misconduct. Melissa previously held the position of UMD's Research Integrity Officer (RIO) and returned in the summer of 2024 to stand up OIRC after serving as the Executive Director of the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance at the George Washington University.

Melissa has extensive experience with handling misconduct matters and coordinating efforts to broadly foster integrity and compliance — particularly through the creation of associated education and resources, collaboration with related institutional offices and committees, identification of associated policy and program needs, and engagement with federal partners in funding and regulatory oversight agencies. She has been active in related professional associations and organizations, regularly presented on topics relevant to integrity and responsible conduct, and served as a consultant on revising policies and procedures. 

Prior to her time at UMD, Melissa served as the Director of Research Integrity at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, handling cases of both research and professional misconduct and overseeing the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) program, as well as the Assistant Director of Outside Interests, working on issues related to conflicts of interest in research and conflicts of commitment. Before joining JHU, she practiced law with a general litigation firm in Maryland. Melissa also previously served as the Assistant Managing Editor of a national political magazine based in Washington, D.C.

Melissa received her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, along with a certificate in health law, and her B.A. in political science from Salisbury University. 

Dr. Mariah Bauer currently serves as the inaugural Director of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Programming, a mission critical position. Mariah is responsible for the framing and continual development of novel and robust RCR programming and institutional-level coordination of RCR efforts across campus; all in service of fostering a culture of research integrity, promoting the responsible conduct of research, ensuring compliance with funding agency requirements, addressing the needs of the institution’s research community, and preventing research misconduct at UMD.

Mariah has been at UMD since 1999 and has had broad experience working at the college and department level, in the Division of Research, in Academic Affairs, and with executive leadership on myriad strategic business, research, and academic initiatives. 

Mariah received her Ph.D. and M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, and an interdisciplinary B.A. in English and Writing at Loyola University Maryland. She is also a Prosci-certified change management practitioner (2019).

Audrey Birgin is the Deputy Research Integrity Officer at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). In this role, she handles research misconduct matters and other research integrity issues and has been instrumental in the development of new Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) programming for UMD. Audrey has leveraged her research experience — supplemented by independent research and engagement in professional training and development activities — to inform her creation of comprehensive RCR programming and related educational materials for the university’s research community. 

Prior to this position, Audrey studied Public Health Science, with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics, graduating with her B.S. in 2022. Throughout her schooling, she worked as a research fellow in UMD’s Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, where she primarily studied the stigma/stress/substance use pathway in young adults from minority communities.

Mike Spolidoro is a Senior Investigator for the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) responsible for conducting professional misconduct investigations while supporting cases of research and scholarly misconduct. Mike previously served as an investigator for over 21 years with the United States Postal Service, conducting and supervising a variety of casework including employee misconduct, procurement fraud, and healthcare fraud. A retired United States Coast Guard reservist, Mike spent five years on active duty followed by a nearly 20-year career in the Coast Guard Reserves with a focus on operational intelligence supporting multiple global contingencies. Mike graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy with a B.S. in Marine Science and earned a M.S. in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. He is recognized as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP) by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE).