Michelle Walter

Michelle Walter is a biostatistician and Vice President of Coordinating Centers at RTI. With over two decades of experience leading multisite clinical research studies, Ms. Walter provides leadership to a department of 175+ research staff with expertise in clinical, discovery, and translational research. Prior to her current role, Ms. Walter led RTI’s Statistics Division and RTI’s Center for Clinical Research Network Coordination.

Ms. Walter has an extensive background of project leadership experience, such as her position as the Operations Core Lead for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-funded Collaborating Network of Networks for Evaluating COVID-19 and Therapeutic Strategies (CONNECTS). In partnership with the principal investigators of the project, she oversaw the administrative coordinating center operations and implementation of clinical trials.  

Before joining RTI in 2020, Ms. Walter worked for a mid-sized CRO where she led a multidisciplinary business unit that provided coordinating center services for federally funded research networks and studies. Working with principal investigators and NIH leadership, she provided oversight of quality control, protocol development, clinical operations, data management, statistics, safety, and regulatory services, plus financial and administrative oversight, for a portfolio of over 70 trials and more than 100 staff. She also served in a corporate management role as a member of the executive leadership team, where she provided the federal research perspective to corporate strategic planning and decision-making for the company.