Click here to view the Nov 8th INTEREACH webinar, with Melanie Bauer, research development professional at Nova Southeastern University in South Florida. Research Development (RD) professionals support faculty in their grant seeking and other research-related endeavors. However, they are a largely untapped group of intellectual leaders capable of authoring large grants to develop research-enhancing programs, connect with state/national initiatives, and advance team science thereby elevating the role RD plays in furthering research, translation, and economic goals. RD professionals are also prime recipients of the outputs of the field of team science, though these findings need support to translate into the workplace. Melanie describes in this webinar how as RD professionals ourselves, her team broke outside their typical roles as grant proposal supporters to be grant leaders ourselves, winning as PI and Co-PIs a major federal grant. What resulted was a test of what happens when we step outside the roles we typically play at our institutions and in our profession in order to serve as boundary spanners connecting with and translating information from various stakeholder groups. In the near term her team aims to improve interdisciplinary research collaborations and redefine what’s possible in RD, and in the long term to be part of the solution to addressing major societal challenges.