The tranquility of Dr. Eva Pell's office contradicts the nature of her work.

Her Old Main office door opens to sky-blue carpet and creamy white walls. Plants perch at her windowsills, and a ficus tree stands beside her desk, which is covered in reports and folders. Botanical prints of ginseng and blossoms line the wall behind a long conference table.

Despite its tranquility, Pell has little time to enjoy her office. As the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school at Penn State, she spends her days dashing to meetings, answering messages, checking with department heads and preparing reports.

"I don't think there is a typical day," the petite woman said with a laugh.

Last year, Penn State spent more than $440 million on research — $47 million more than last year. The university leads the nation in material science innovations, breaks boundaries in genetics research, and is gaining speed in technology transfer. Pell is the person in charge of distributing funds to research departments.

"I think if you look back in history, you'd see that research was done in very narrow interdisciplinary worlds when there were many fewer disciplines, and the questions people were asking in science and social sciences were rather narrow," Pell said. "But today, the complexity of the ways problems are addressed is much greater because the knowledge base is that much greater, and probably because our lives are more complex."

Pell said her major responsibilities are to facilitate interdisciplinary activities and determine priorities for funding.

Pell's life became more complex a year and a half ago, when Penn State President Graham Spanier asked her to take her current position. Spanier said in a recent e-mail that Pell stands out due to her achievements as a researcher, a teacher and mentor to graduate students.

"Her qualities are her brilliance, her dedication, and that she cares so much about people and the university," Spanier said. "She is one of Penn State's top scholars and articulates well the important research mission of the university."

At the time of her promotion, Pell was studying the effects of ozone depreciation on plants. The project, which she worked on with a team of graduate students, was using genetics to identify how plant cells react to ozone.

Pell has a picture of her research team beside her desk, facing out for visitors to see. The blown-up image shows about 10 smiling researchers, and Pell's face beaming. She called the researchers talented, committed and the best group she ever worked with.

"When I came over here, I had to take a picture with my researchers before I left," she said, as if her Old Main office were miles from the greenhouses behind Eisenhower Auditorium. "I always said if I was going to make a change, I was going to do it while things were going well."

A major aspect of research at a university should be incorporating the work of graduate students, said Pell, who also oversees graduate students.

"She is an unwavering champion of graduate students and is constantly thinking of ways to improve their compensation, working conditions, and benefits," Spanier said.

Working with students on research projects, as she has for 26 years, always has been Pell's career goal. Although she first became a high school chemistry teacher after graduating with a doctorate in plant biology from Rutgers University, she said she knew she wanted to be a researcher and professor.

The shift from a researcher to an administrator was an "interesting" one, she said. "I think the biggest difference is when you are a faculty member, your major responsibility is research," she said. "You spend big blocks of time thinking about things. You might spend the whole day writing a paper, writing a draft proposal. And now I'm lucky if I have 60 minutes on one activity."

Pell arrives at her office at 7:30 a.m., leaves about 6:30 p.m., and works a few hours from home on weekends and evenings. She also acts as a spokeswoman for research at university functions.

Despite the hurried pace of her schedule, Pell said she has never regretted taking on her administrative role. "When you've worked for a place as long as I've worked for Penn State, and you've had a wonderful and satisfying career, as I've had as a faculty member, you get the feeling that at some point you have to give something back to the institution."

From her perspective, Pell can see all of the capabilities of Penn State's researchers, which is both a benefit and a frustration.

She can see what can be accomplished, but she also knows the limited resources the departments are allotted. "The potential of this university is just unbelievable, I think," she said. "It was always a university with a lot of potential, but the increase of potential today is just huge. Sometimes I feel if only we had more resources we could be a greater institution than we already are."

Although she diplomatically refuses to name a specific research project she is most excited about or proud of at Penn State, Pell said that she sees great potential in life sciences due to her biology background.

"The breakthroughs in genetic, genomics, are going to change the way we live our lives in the 21st century. And that's coming from a completely acknowledged bias," she said, pausing to sip from a coffee cup in the shape of a terra cotta flowerpot. "Being a biologist, I don't know how you could possibly think anything could ever be more interesting. And it is. The breakthroughs in how we can study these things and what we know compared to what we knew when I went to college is beyond anything anyone could have ever fathomed. The possibilities are enormous."

Since she took on the role as vice president of research, she initiated a lot of important changes, Spanier said.

"She has reorganized the areas of research and graduate studies, hired some excellent staff, developed new programs, helped to attract new funding to the university, and brought people together to collaborate across disciplines," Spanier said.

Pell's successes are not limited to her work. She and her husband Ira have two children -- both Penn State graduates. Pell also has several thriving houseplants, including a schefflera plant that was a gift given when her 22-year-old daughter Rachel was born. An offspring of that plant now stands in the corner of her office. However, she sees less potential for her personal goals.

"I'd like to get better at my bridge game," she said. "I don't think there's much hope for that."