Dr. Jennifer Alvidrez joined the Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) as a Health Scientist Administrator in August 2021. Dr. Alvidrez leads ODP efforts to strengthen research to address health disparities in disease prevention.

Before joining ODP, Dr. Alvidrez was a Program Official at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). In this role, she managed a diverse portfolio of research, capacity building, and training grants. Dr. Alvidrez also served as the Program Director for the NIMHD Centers of Excellence Program and initiatives on population health in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands, on risk and resilience in Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and on youth violence preventive interventions that address racism/discrimination.

Prior to the NIMHD, Dr. Alvidrez was an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research addressed barriers to mental health care among racial and ethnic minority populations, mental health stigma, mental health treatment for crime victims, and minority inclusion in clinical research.

Dr. Alvidrez received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Office of the Director, NIH

Dr. Ranjini Ambalavanar is a Scientist-Investigator in the Division of Investigative Oversight (DIO), Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Dr. Ambalavanar conducts oversight review of cases of Research misconduct in Public Health Service (PHS)-funded research at US institutions. ORI promotes integrity in biomedical research supported by the PHS and oversees investigations of research misconduct cases

Prior to joining the ORI in May 2009, Dr. Ambalavanar was a faculty member at the University of Maryland Dental School (UMD). Dr. Ambalavanar received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Liverpool, UK, her postdoctoral training at Cambridge University, UK and NINDS, NIH, (Bethesda, MD, USA). Dr. Ambalavanar was interested in the mechanisms of chronic cutaneous and deep tissue pain involving muscle and joint. She explored the neural mechanisms of chronic craniofacial pain disorders anda provided creative directions in science by her unique contributions to the field. She has published many peer reviewed articles and invited book chapters in her field of research.

Office of Research Integrity, HHS

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Dr. Sally Amero serves as the NIH Review Policy Officer (RPO) and Extramural Research Integrity Liaison Officer (ERILO) in the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). As RPO, she advises the Deputy Director for Extramural Research on peer review policy, develops review policy, and facilitates its implementation across the agency. As ERILO, she handles violations of peer review integrity. Before joining OER, she served as the Scientific Review Officer for the genome study section and subsequently as the inaugural Chief of the Bioengineering Sciences and Technology Integrated Review Group in the Center for Scientific Review. Before joining the NIH, Dr. Amero was an assistant professor at Loyola University Medical Center, where her research focused on chromosome structure and RNA processing. Dr. Amero earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology and Biochemical Genetics from West Virginia University, and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Virginia and Washington University.

Office of Extramural Research (OER) , NIH
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Marianna Azar is a Program Specialist with the Division of Education and Development at the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Before joining OHRP, Ms. Azar served as Director and Chair of the Institutional Review Boards for the New York City Department of Education. Prior to that, she was employed as a Human Research Protection Program Manager at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and as an IRB Specialist at Columbia University’s Human Research Protection Office. Marianna holds a BA in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Oswego, an MA in Philosophy and a Graduate Diploma in Health Services and Policy Research from York University in Toronto, Canada, and is also working on completing her Ph.D. in Bioethics at York University.

Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)

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Chernoh started his federal career in 2012 as a SCEP student for the USDA. Initially, he worked with the Office of Rural Development (RD) as a Program Assistant implementing special projects. Upon graduating from George Washington University with a Master’s degree from GWU, he began his full-time G&A federal career at USDA's Forest Service (FS) office in 2013.

While working at Forest Service, he has gained experience executing agreements on behalf of the Forest Service with State & Private landowners, creating G&A policy for all FS G&A specialists, and writing financial policy for the entire FS.

Office of Extramural Research (OER)

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Marie A. Bernard, M.D. is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD). As COSWD, she leads NIH thought regarding the science of scientific workforce diversity, assuring that the full range of talent is accessed to promote scientific creativity and innovation, both intramurally and extramurally. Dr. Bernard also co-leads NIH’s newly announced UNITE initiative to end structural racism.

Prior to being selected as the COSWD in May 2021, she was deputy director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). As NIA’s senior geriatrician, she served as the principal advisor to the NIA director. She also led a broad range of activities, including co-chairing two Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2020/2030 objectives – 1) Older Adults, and 2) Dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease. She co-led the NIH-wide Inclusion Governance Committee that ensures appropriate inclusion of individuals in clinical studies, including by sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and inclusion of children and older adults. She also co-chaired the Women of Color Committee of the NIH-wide Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers. Her national leadership in geriatrics research, teaching, and clinical practice has been recognized by the Clark Tibbits award from the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (2013), and the Donald P Kent award from the Gerontological Society of America (2014). Her work within NIH has been recognized with NIH Director’s awards (2018 and 2019), including the NIH Director’s award for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in 2020.

Until October 2008 she was the endowed professor and founding chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, and Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She has held numerous national leadership roles, including chair of the Department of Veterans Affairs National Research Advisory Committee, chair of the Clinical Medicine (now Health Sciences) Section of the Gerontological Society of America, board member of the American Geriatrics Society, president of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, and president of the Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs. She has lectured and published widely in her area of research, nutrition and function in older adults, with particular focus on underrepresented minority populations.

National Institute of Aging (NIA), NIH

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Dr. Jade Blevins is the Customer Relationship Manager and Product Owner for several grants administration services and eRA projects including, Request for Additional Materials (RAM), Certificate of Confidentiality, Federal Financial Report transition to use of the Payment Management System and Partner Agency functionalities within the National Institutes of Health’s division of electronic Research Administration (eRA). Jade began her career with OER as a Scientific Information Analyst in the Division of Categorization and Analysis. She moved to eRA as a product owner for the Research Condition and Disease Categorization team and from there was reassigned to the Human Subjects System and now the Commons team where she is a liaison between end users and development teams defining and implementing system requirements. Jade is an alumna of the University of Maryland Baltimore where she holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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Ericka Boone, Ph.D. is currently the Acting Director for the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce (DBRW) within the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). She also serves as teh Director of the NIH Division of Loan Repayment. In this role, Dr. Boone is responsible for administering and providing leadership for the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRP) as well as representing NIH on matters related to the operations, policy development and evaluation of the LRP. Previous to this position, Dr. Boone served as a Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of Science Policy and Communications at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There she developed and targeted science-based publications, outreach initiatives and other activities to educate a variety of audiences about the science of drug use, abuse and addiction. For her role in these efforts, Dr. Boone has won several NIDA Director’s Awards of Merit and an NIH Director’s Award. Prior to coming to NIH, Dr. Boone conducted research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Emory University. Dr. Boone’s academic background includes a B.A. in Biology from Talladega College and a Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health from The Pennsylvania State University.

Division of Loan Repayment
Office of Extramural Research (OER)
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Dr. Amanda Boyce joined the NIAMS extramural program as the Program Director for Muscle Development and Physiology in 2006. She also acts as the NIAMS representative to the trans-NIH Training Advisory Committee. She came from the NIAMS intramural program where she worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch under Dr. Rocky Tuan.

Dr. Boyce received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and completed her Ph.D. in Cell Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her graduate studies, Dr. Boyce conducted research on epithelial cell ion channels. She joined Dr. Rosa Serra’s lab as a post-doctoral fellow in 2003, where she began work in the field of cartilage development and osteoarthritis. In 2004, Dr. Boyce moved to the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch of NIAMS, where she continued her research on cartilage development and fracture healing.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), NIH

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Ms. Rosalina Bray is the NIH Extramural Staff Training Officer and leads the activities of for Extramural Staff Training Programs. Prior to accepting a position in the NIH Office of the Director, she was a Senior Health Science Policy Analyst for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development; and a Program Analyst for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. She serves on several trans-Agency and trans-NIH committees and working groups. Bray has led several national and global collaborative efforts. She has a passion for leadership development and transforming organizations.

At the NIH, she co-chairs the OD Staff Training Advisory Committee (STAC). While serving as the NIH Extramural Staff Training Officer, Ms. Bray led efforts to design the NIH Training 365 Programmatic Framework; redesigned the NIH Integrated Core Curriculum for extramural staff; established partnerships and collaborations with NIH Training Partners award the agency; and improved the coordination of training activities within the Office of Extramural Research. Ms. Bray is considered one of the nation’s foremost thought leaders in executive leadership, science policy, technological innovation, business development, and education reform. In addition, she is a leading voice for diversity and inclusion, capacity building, pipeline development, and workforce development.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Alesia Brody has been with NIH for over 10 years and currently serves as an Assistant Compliance Officer in the Division of Grants Compliance & Oversight where she provides policy and compliance guidance to both internal and external stakeholders and manages a variety of projects including the Grants Management Professional Certification Program. Before joining OPERA, she served as a Senior Grants Management Specialist at Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) where she managed a diverse and complex grant portfolio.

Prior to joining NIH, she worked in various aspects of grants and program management including as a program officer at the American Legacy Foundation and program manager at Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools. Before relocating to the Washington metropolitan area, she worked to expand educational opportunities for domestic and international students of all ages holding positions such as: Comprehensive Support Program Tutor at Lynn University; Academic Director for Score Educational Centers; and Manager for International Fulbright Preacademic Programs at the Institute of International Education. Ms. Brody has gained invaluable experience working closely with students of various academic levels, university faculty and administrators, and government agencies throughout her professional career.

Ms. Brody received her Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Boston after completing her undergraduate studies in sociology and economics. She also holds a certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Georgetown University.

Division of Grants Compliance and Oversight (DGCO)
Office of Policy for Extramural Research (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Michelle G. Bulls is the Director of the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) with policy and compliance oversight for the 24 Institutes and Centers grants management offices within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Michelle provides national leadership and oversight in the business and financial management of the federal assistance biomedical research programs supported by NIH. Michelle has over 20 years of grants administration experience and is well respected Federal-wide for her grants policy expertise. She continues to lead HHS and Federal-wide efforts in drafting and implementing financial assistance regulations and policies. She currently serves on the Council of Financial Assistance Reform working group where she champions grants management streamlining and reformation efforts across the Federal government.

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Liza Bundesen is senior advisor to the NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research in the Office of Extramural Research (OER). In OER, Dr. Bundesen works on a variety of issues, such as collaborating with NIH colleagues on developing and implementing extramural policies and procedures; protecting the integrity of NIH-funded research; and communicating the value of NIH-supported research to NIH’s wide range of stakeholders. Prior to joining OER, Dr. Bundesen was Chief of the Science Policy and Evaluation Branch within the Office of Science Policy, Planning, and Communications at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). At NIMH, she oversaw a range of policy and planning activities for the institute, including Congressional reporting, strategic planning, and program evaluation. Dr. Bundesen joined NIMH in 2004 as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Before coming to NIH, she was a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies, where she worked at the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Liza received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Georgetown University and her B.S. in molecular biology from Lehigh University.

Dr. Danielle Carlin has been a Program Administrator (i.e., Health Scientist Administrator) for approximately 9 years with the Superfund Research Program (SRP) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, NC. Her position consists of providing guidance and advice to grantees and applicants applying for P42 Center and R01 grants, writing Requests for Applications, developing and hosting scientific workshops, and serving as the lead liaison between SRP trainees and the various training opportunities offered by SRP. She also has grant portfolios in the areas of environmental chemical mixtures, xenobiotic metabolism, and inhalation toxicology.

Prior to her position, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher for four years at the University of North Carolina (UNC): two years within the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, studying aerosolized drugs/vaccines for treatment and prevention of tuberculosis; and two years within the Curriculum in Toxicology conducting her research at the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), Cardiopulmonary and Immunotoxicology Branch, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina where she studied the toxicological effects of exposure to Libby amphibole asbestos in the rat model. Her areas of expertise include cardiopulmonary/reproductive physiology and inhalation toxicology/pharmacology. She has served in leadership roles such as President and Councilor of the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of Toxicology (NCSOT) and is currently Vice-President of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) Environmental Chemical Mixtures Specialty Section. She is also a member of the American Physiological Society.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH

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Dr. Lisa Chadwick is a Program Director at the National Human Genome Research Institute. She is the program lead for the GREGoR (Genomics Research Elucidates Genetics of Rare Disease) Consortium, and oversees a diverse portfolio of grants that include the development of new approaches for rare disease genomics, strategies to facilitate the interpretation and functional validation of disease-associated genetic variants, and the development of other genomic technologies. She has a particular interest in helping early career researchers successfully navigate the NIH funding process, and leads many of NHGRI’s efforts geared towards early career researchers.

Prior to joining NHGRI, Dr. Chadwick was a program director in the Division of Extramural Research and Training at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, where she was involved in the leadership of the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Program. She received a Ph.D. in Genetics from Case Western Reserve University.

National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), NIH

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Dr. Faye Chen is the program director for the Clinical, Integrative Physiology and Rare Diseases of Bone Program at the Division of Extramural Research of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Prior to this, she served as program director for the Basic Bone Biology Program and the Bone Diseases Program. Her portfolios include grants and applications spanning basic, translational and clinical studies including clinical trials.

Before joining the extramural program as a Program Director in 2009, Faye was a staff scientist at the NIAMS intramural research program at the Cartilage Biology and Orthopedics Branch. Before arriving at NIH, she was a tenure tracked assistant professor and head of Biochemistry Section at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of Columbia University. She was trained as a postdoc at BIDMC and obtained her Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests prior to the extramural program related to the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms governing mesenchymal stem cell biology, with a focus on the roles of extracellular matrix and epigenetic modification and intracellular signaling, adult stem cell differentiation into cartilage and bone, and their application to tissue engineering and orthopedic medicine.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), NIH

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As Communications Director, Ms. Megan Columbus is responsible for leading strategic planning and communication activities pertinent to the management of NIH’s extramural program. She enjoys connecting scientists and administrators to information and tools in support of their research programs, helping the broader public learn how NIH-supported research contributes to health advances, and supporting the ongoing dialog between NIH and the research community. Ms. Columbus’ office is responsible for the NIH Grants and Funding website, the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, the Extramural Nexus newsletter and “Open Mike” blog, eRA system communications, the Grants Info service desk, and a host of other resources. She especially enjoys her outreach responsibilities, which includes putting on events like the NIH Regional Seminars.

Division of Communications and Outreach (DCO)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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John F. Connaughton, Ph.D., Chief, Scientific Review Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health. Dr. Connaughton supervises Scientific Review Officers (SRO) who carry out duties related to the oversight and administration of scientific peer review activities for grant applications, cooperative agreements, and contract proposals assigned to the NIDDK. He serves as a resource for questions related to the law, regulation, and policy that frame the peer review process. He is the NIDDK representative to the trans-NIH Review Policy Committee (RPC) serving as a Principal Member. Dr. Connaughton also serves as an SRO when needed organizing peer review committees that evaluate applications submitted to Funding Opportunity Announcements issued by the NIDDK.

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH

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Scott Cooper is an Assistant Extramural Inventions Policy Officer in the Division of Extramural Inventions and Technology Resources (DEITR) in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research. DEITR works under the auspices of OPERA to develop, implement, and monitor extramural intellectual property policies and invention reporting under the Bayh-Dole Act. The Division also promotes the proper utilization of NIH-funded patents and inventions in extramural programs, as well as facilitates the distribution and sharing of research resources.

Mr. Cooper has more than 21 years of federal service in the areas of Grants Management & Policy and Aviation Security Policy with the Division of Grants Policy, Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research; the HHS’ Office of Grants Policy Oversight and Evaluation; the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at DHS. Prior to joining Federal service, he served as a staff attorney for a small non-profit organization that served the Criminal Justice community. Mr. Cooper earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Albany, and his Juris Doctor degree from the Albany Law School of Union University.

Office of Extramural Research, NIH
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Ms. Dawn Corbett is the NIH Inclusion Policy Officer in the Office of Extramural Research’s Office (OER), where she provides oversight of trans-NIH efforts to ensure the inclusion of women, minorities, and individuals across the lifespan in NIH-defined clinical research. Prior to joining OER, Ms. Corbett led efforts to increase the efficiency and transparency of clinical research through enhanced recruitment monitoring and increased compliance efforts as a Health Science Policy Analyst in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Office of Clinical Research, Clinical Trials Operations and Biostatistics Branch. Ms. Corbett began her federal career at NIH in the NIMH Office for Research on Disparities in Global Mental Health (formerly Office for Special Populations), where she coordinated programs related to diversity in clinical research, and designed and conducted portfolio analyses in the areas of global mental health and mental health disparities. Ms. Corbett has a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Office of Extramural Research (OER)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
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Sheri Cummins joined NIH in 2008 as a Customer Relationship Manager for the electronic Research Administration (eRA) program focusing on eRA’s external services including eRA Commons and Electronic Application Submission. While working in eRA, she led many projects including the implementation of NIH's web-based ASSIST system for grant application preparation and submission. In 2013, she moved to the Division of Communications and Outreach for the NIH Office of Extramural Research where she is responsible for grants process communications and outreach. Prior to coming to NIH, she worked for GE Global Exchange Services for 13 years in various roles including people and project management, communications, customer support and client advocacy. She was also the owner/operator of a small retail business. Ms. Cummins is an alumna of the University of Maryland, where she received a B.S. in Computer Science.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Cindy Danielson is a Health Science Policy Analyst in the Division of Data Systems and Data Quality, which is part of the Office of Extramural Research (OER) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cindy supports the development of reporting tools and databases used for program management and analysis by NIH staff and members of the public, including NIH RePORT and RePORTER. She first joined NIH in 2013 as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Office of Science Policy and Legislation, where she analyzed and reported on NINR’s portfolio of research. She received her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Northwestern University, where she focused on the cell biology of HIV and host cell defenses, and her undergraduate degree in psychobiology from the University of Southern California.

Office of Extramural Research, NIH

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Diane Dean is Senior Advisor in the NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research (OPERA). Previously, Diane served as the Director of the Division of Grants Compliance and Oversight (DGCO) in OPERA, a component of the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). She joined OPERA in 1998 and became the first director of DGCO in January 2002. The DGCO provides a focal point for the NIH extramural research program to promote compliance and enhance compliance oversight by recipient institutions. Diane’s extensive career at NIH encompasses over 25 years of compliance experience in extramural research, including 16 years reviewing allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse, the basis for her keen interest in compliance

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Ms. Mary Fran Deutsch is a Grants Management Specialist in the Division of Extramural Inventions & Technology Resources (DEITR) in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research.

She has a range of federal grants experience including:

• • working with Department of Education (DoEd) State grantees
• • serving as a Program Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the agency’s largest discretionary grant program, and
• • serving as a Grants Compliance Officer within the NIH.

While at CMS, she received the Administrator's Achievement Award and the DHHS Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service, as part of a large inter-agency coordinating team for the New Freedom Initiative. She earned her J.D. from Creighton University School of Law, and her B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in History and Political Science from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ms. Deutsch has also served as a judicial law clerk to both a state Supreme Court Justice and to a Federal Bankruptcy Judge. Before moving to the Washington D.C. area, she was an attorney in private practice for several years.

Office of Extramural Research, NIH

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Dr. Kelly Drew, Chief Executive Officer of Be Cool Pharmaceutics, promotes the science of hibernation, economic growth and world health through discovery and commercialization of hibernation-based therapies. Dr. Drew studied neuropharmacology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and at the Karolinska Institute before returning to Alaska in 1990 where she is now Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and directs a new NIH funded center in hibernation science. Passionate about the neurochemistry of consciousness and brain energy metabolism Dr. Drew fell in love with hibernation. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Drew’s research group discovered a mechanism necessary and sufficient to drive the onset of hibernation. She founded Be Cool Pharmaceutics LLC in 2015 to commercialize therapeutics for neurocritical care after cardiac arrest, and post-operative shivering. She consults with the space flight industry on human hibernation for long-term space travel. In her free time Dr. Drew advocates for the neurologically disabled.

Ms. Cynthia Dwyer serves as a coordinator of the NIH Regional Seminars on Program Funding and Grants Administration for the Office of Extramural Research’s Division of Communications and Outreach. In addition, she is responsible for coordinating other OER outreach activities and the development of resources for the extramural research community.
Ms. Dwyer began her career with NIH in 2000 as a Grants Management Specialist for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where she served for five years. In 2005, she moved to the NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) where she served as a Grants Policy Officer prior to joining OER’s communications office. Ms. Dwyer obtained her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Texas, her teaching degree from University of Missouri-St Louis, and Master of Arts in School Administration from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO. Prior to her career with the NIH, Ms. Dwyer taught grade school, wrote grants for her school district, served as a regional customer service trainer and manager for a major retail chain, and published a travel magazine of Central Missouri.

Division of Communications and Outreach (DCO)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Ms. Stephanie J. Fertig is the HHS Small Business Program Lead in SEED (Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She currently oversees the Health and Human Services (HHS) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which includes the NIH SBIR and STTR programs. The HHS SBIR and STTR programs are congressionally mandated set-aside programs that provide over $1.2 billion dollars per year to small business concerns. Prior to joining SEED, she managed the SBIR and STTR Programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). During her over 15 years at NIH she has led the development and implementation of multiple programs focused on small businesses and translational research. Ms. Fertig has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with a major in Physics from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Office of Extramural Research (OER)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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Ki-Cha Flash-Zapata is the Deputy Director of the Division of Grants Compliance and Oversight in the OER’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA). She assists the grants management staff and recipients in understanding their responsibility in safeguarding Federal funds, establishing and maintaining effective management of resources, and monitoring compliance with Federal requirements, policies, regulations, and legislative mandates. Ki-Cha previously served in awards management for over 13 in the areas of Other Transactions Authority and Grants Management throughout her tenure at the NIH. In 2008, Ki-Cha served as an Administrative Fellow at the NIH. In 2008 and 2009, she earned a dual master’s degree in Healthcare Administration and in Business Administration.

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Shawn Drew Gaillard, Ph.D. is chief of the Developmental and Cellular Processes Branch in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB) , where she administers grants focused on chromosome and nuclear structures, organismal response to environmental stressors, and microbiome, biofilms, and quorum sensing. Immediately prior to this role, she was the research training officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Prior to that, Gaillard was a program officer in the NIGMS Genetics and Developmental Biology Division (predecessor to GMCDB) and in the Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD) Division.

Gaillard received a bachelor's degree in natural sciences with a concentration in chemistry from Spelman College. She conducted predoctoral research training at the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). She earned her Ph.D. in biology from Howard University and conducted predoctoral and postdoctoral research at NIDDK.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

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Alison Gammie, Ph.D., is director of the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity, which supports the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' (NIGMS) research training, career development and diversity-building activities. Prior to coming to NIGMS, she was a Senior Lecturer at Princeton University, where, in addition to teaching, mentoring and running a research laboratory, she served as an academic advisor, an Associate Member at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and the Director of Diversity Programs & Graduate Recruiting. Honors include Princeton’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Graduate Mentoring Award and the American Society for Microbiology Hinton Award for advancing the research careers of under-represented minorities.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

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Kasima Garst is a Systems Policy Analyst in the OER’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) Systems Policy Branch. She represents NIH on systems policy initiatives at the HHS and Federal-wide levels and works with key NIH stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of critical systems, policies, and compliance requirements across the NIH. Prior to joining OPERA in 2019, Mrs. Garst was a Grants Management Officer at the NIH Fogarty International Center and a Grants Management Specialist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Middlebury College and a Master of Forensic Sciences degree in Forensic Molecular Biology from the George Washington University.

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Scarlett is currently the Lead Customer Relationship Manager for the eRA External Services Team. This team includes the eRA effort in Commons as well as eSubmission and Business to Business systems. Prior to this position Scarlett managed the eRA Helpdesk during the electronic submission effort timeframe, where trouble calls and emails are received from both internal and external users of eRA systems. She has been with the eRA program for 8 years. Ms. Gibb has been employed with the Federal government in a variety of positions for the past twenty five years. Prior to working on the eRA project she worked at the Center for Scientific Review where she started her career as a grants technical assistant, then moved into the information technology field. She has studied at Montgomery College, UDC and Trinity College in Washington, DC, where she received her bachelor’s degree in business management.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Kenneth Gibbs, Jr., Ph.D. is director of the NIGMS Postdoctoral Research Associate Training (PRAT) Program, and is a program director in the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity, where he manages the Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) program and oversees predoctoral T32 biostatistics grants. He also manages research grants in the areas of stem cell biology and regeneration in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.

Gibbs was previously a program analyst in the Institute’s Office of Program Planning, Analysis, and Evaluation. Before joining NIGMS, he was a cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation. Gibbs earned a B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in immunology from Stanford University.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

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Dr. Timothy Gondré-Lewis received his A.B. from Oberlin College and Ph.D. from the Medical College of Virginia – Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed his training as a post-doctoral fellow at the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, N.Y. After his post-doctoral fellowship Dr. Gondré-Lewis joined the faculty at York College of The City University of New York teaching and maintaining an active research laboratory. He joined DAIT in September of 2002 as a Program Officer in the Basic Immunology Branch.

At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Gondré-Lewis manages a large research portfolio of grants, cooperative agreements, program projects, and contracts including the Large-Scale T Cell Immune Epitope Discovery contract program and the Computational Models of Immunity cooperative agreements. He is also the Training Officer responsible for the NIAID DP2, F, K, and T activities for the Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation (DAIT) at NIAID/NIH.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH

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Dr. Paula Goodwin is currently the NIH Program Administration Officer in the Office of Extramural Research (OER) which provides leadership and expertise in science program management. Prior to OER, Dr. Goodwin was a Program Official at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she directed a portfolio of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Dr. Goodwin earned her doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and received postdoctoral training at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research has primarily focused on the family and social roles of minority women across the life course and the impact these roles have on their health outcomes. Prior to her federal career, Dr. Goodwin was a professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Neera V. Gopee, D.V.M., Ph.D. is the Director, Division of Policy and Education in the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda Maryland. Dr. Gopee earned her veterinary degree at the University of the West Indies and holds a doctoral degree in Toxicology from the University of Georgia. Prior to her appointment at OLAW, she served as a Veterinary Medical Officer at the National Center for Toxicological Research, US Food and Drug Administration in Jefferson, AR. Dr. Gopee is board certified in toxicology and laboratory animal medicine.

Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW)

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Bio Coming Soon!

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April Harrison has 15 years of experience working at The National Institutes of Health. She currently serves as a Grants Management Specialist at NIDCR, where she is very active in the NIH community and serves on a number of committees working to develop and enhance outdated systems and processes. She has a workload of over 200 awards annually consisting of various mechanisms used at NIH. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Delaware State University and a Master’s degree in Psychology and Counseling from the University of District of Columbia.

Dr. Nonye Harvey is a Health Science Policy Analyst in the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Implementation Office housed within the Immediate Office of the Director, Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH Office of the Director. She works across NIH, on trans-NIH groups and committees, to support central coordination, harmonization and standardization of systems and processes for optimal implementation of NIH data sharing policies across NIH Institutes and Centers, and the broader scientific community. Previously, Dr. Harvey held various positions and roles throughout her 15-year tenure at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She worked as a Program Director, Team Lead, Public Health Advisor and Program Analyst in the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, and in the NCI Office of Cancer Survivorship.

Dr. Harvey was the Executive Director of the NCI Cohort Consortium from 2006-2020 and co-authored several peer-reviewed publications on consortium pooling studies, and more recently a CEBP commentary on the Consortium’s strategic planning process. She was also involved in the development and management of other cancer epidemiology cohort research and consortia, including the Breast Cancer and Environment Research Program initiative, jointly funded by NCI and NIEHS. Her expertise and interests include span data sharing in biomedical research, policy, evaluation, strategic planning, scientific initiative development, cancer epidemiology consortia research, and global health.

Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Harvey served as the Program Manager of the Mid-Atlantic Region Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at the George Washington University (GWU) Milken Institute School of Public Health where she worked on children’s environmental health research and provider training programs. She earned her M.P.H. in maternal and child health and international health from the GWU Milken Institute School of Public Health and her Dr.P.H. in leadership in public health from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.

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Lauren D. Hill, PhD is the Acting Director of the Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity (ODWD) at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). ODWD advances NIMH efforts to promote equity in research, to address the mental health needs of individuals and communities negatively impacted by health disparities, and to promote diversity and inclusion for those underrepresented in the research workforce. Prior to joining ODWD, Dr. Hill was the Director of Research Training and Career Development in the NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research, where she managed a large and diverse program of research training grants and initiatives. Before coming to NIMH, Dr. Hill had faculty appointments in the Departments of Medical and Clinical Psychology (MPS) and Family Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine (USU) and directed the Education Core of the NIH-funded USU Center for Health Disparities Research and Education. Dr. Hill earned a B.S. in Biology-Psychology from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at American University in Washington, DC. She completed psychology internship in adult behavioral medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and post-doctoral training at USU in community-partnered health disparities research.

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Sean Hine is a Supervisory Grants Management Specialist with the National Cancer Institute at NIH. Prior to his current position, Sean worked at NCI as a Grants Management Specialist and a Team Leader. Through 16 years of experience, he has worked with nearly every mechanism that NCI supports. Sean has a degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton where he majored in business management with concentrations in leadership and management information systems.

National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH
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Dr. Deborah Hodge is the Scientific Review Officer for CSR’s Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune and Immune-mediated Diseases study section.

Dr. Hodge came to this position after an extended tenure in research at the Laboratory of Experimental Immunology, National Cancer Institute, where she studied regulation of immune genes with a focus on transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of interferon gamma expression in natural killer cells. Dr. Hodge received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from West Virginia University, where she studied gene regulation of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, an enzyme linked to intermediary metabolism.

Tanya Hoodbhoy, Ph.D., is a program director in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the National Institute on General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). She oversees research grants in the areas of developmental genetics and developmental signaling as well as a portfolio of postdoctoral fellowship grants. Before joining NIGMS, she was a program director in the Office of Strategic Coordination of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of the Director. Prior to that, Hoodbhoy was a scientific review officer for the former Biology of Development and Aging Integrated Review Group at the NIH Center for Scientific Review.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Occidental College and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, Riverside. Hoodbhoy conducted postdoctoral research on the molecular mechanisms underlying mammalian fertilization and early development at the University of California, Riverside, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

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Dr. Brian Hoshaw received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology/Neuroscience from Temple University in 2002. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Pharmacology. In 2006, he joined the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) at the NIH as part of the Scientific Review Officer (SRO) internship program. In 2012, he joined the National Eye Institute as an SRO where he reviews clinical trial and other applications.
During his time at NIH, Dr. Hoshaw has served on numerous committees and working groups related to SRO training with a focus on IT aspects of the SRO job. Dr. Hoshaw has been involved in the development and use of Internet Assisted Meetings (IAM). He was one of the first users of this review format, and for 3 years he was the IAM Coordinator at the Center for Scientific Review, and for 2 years he was co-Chair of the SRO Technical and Competencies Subcommittee (STCS). Dr. Hoshaw is currently the Chief of the Scientific Review Branch at the National Eye Institute. His review load covers training grants and clinical trial applications, as well as applications submitted to RFAs for NEI.

National Eye Institute (NEI), NIH Contact Information

Dr. Alfred C. Johnson was appointed as the Deputy Director for Management and Chief Financial Officer for the National Institutes of Health in May 2017. As Deputy Director for Management (DDM), he advises the Director, NIH, and senior officials on all phases of NIH-wide administration and provides oversight for budget and finance; human resources; management assessment and policy; program integrity; contracts, procurement, and logistics; engineering services; safety, space, and facility management; support services; and security operations. Dr. Johnson is the principal NIH contact on administrative and management matters for the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) and other federal agencies.

Prior to taking on the Deputy Director for Management role, Dr. Johnson served as the NIH Associate Director for Research Services and Director of the Office of Research Services (ORS) for ten years. As the ORS Director, he planned and directed service programs for public safety and security operations, scientific and regulatory support, and a wide variety of other program and employee services. In this capacity, he served as the Chief Security Officer, the Designated Agency Safety and Health Official and the Senior Official for Health and Wellness. He managed a staff of over 550 federal employees, over 1400 contract employees and a budget of over $250 million to deliver programs and services to the NIH community.

Dr. Johnson has also served an Assistant Director in the NIH Office of Intramural Research, the Acting Director, Division of Loan Repayment, Director of the NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program and was a Principal Investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute. His research was in the molecular biology of cancer arena focused on regulation of epidermal growth factor receptor gene expression.

Dr. Johnson was born and raised in Alabama. He earned a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, in chemistry from Albany State University, Albany, Georgia and a doctorate degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Office of Management
Office of the Director, NIH

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Calvin Johnson serves as the Acting Director of the Division of Data Integration and Dissemination, Office of Research Reporting and Analysis, Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH. In this capacity, he serves as business owner of public NIH data systems such as RePORT and RePORTER as well as Web resources for NIH staff including QVR, iRePORT and SPIRES. He also consults on ongoing OER efforts in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. Previously, he served as the Chief of the Office of High Performance Computing and Informatics in the Center for Information Technology (CIT) Office of Intramural Research. He’s been at NIH since 1987, including over 30 years at CIT, where he had the privilege to work with leading intramural researchers in computational genomics, biomedical informatics, high performance computing, positron emission tomography, electron microscopy, and magnetoencephalography. He received his Ph.D. in operations research from George Mason University, M.S. in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and B.S. in electrical engineering from Syracuse University.

Office of Research Reporting and Analysis, Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Bio: Dr. Ring serves as a Research Integrity Officer in the Office of Extramural Research (OER). In this role she is responsible for reviewing allegations of research misconduct, misuse of funds, human participants violations, vertebrate animals violations, and other misrepresentations and making referrals to the appropriate oversight agencies. Prior to joining OER, Dr. Ring was a Scientist Investigator and Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Dr. Ring received her PhD in organic chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University, where her research focused on synthesis and incorporation of noncanonical amino acids.

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Donna founded Pinnacle in 1995. Pinnacle designs, manufactures, and sells laboratory research equipment to the preclinical neuroscience market. The company has received 15 Phase II SBIR/STTR awards and has delivered commercial products that aid development of new discoveries and treatments as the result of 12 of the awards. Pinnacle sells to over 40 countries and has been recognized with the Tibbetts Award and the 2019 Kansas Governor’s Exporter of the Year award.

Prior to starting Pinnacle, she held positions as Director of Engineering & Research with several small businesses, and she has worked for various federal and state organizations including: the U.S. House of Representatives, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the University of Connecticut. Donna holds a B.S. and M.S. in botany from the University of Rhode Island, and she studied for her Ph.D. in oceanography at the University of Connecticut. Donna serves/has served on the Board of Directors for Kansas Inc., the Lawrence Technology Association, the Kansas University Center for Research Board of Trustees, the EPSCoR Committee for the Kansas Board of Regents, the U.S. Department of Commerce Mid-America District Export Council, and the Kansas International Trade Coordinating Council.

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Dr. Shoshana Kahana joined the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce (DBRW) in OER as the Training Policy Program Officer in 2017. Since 2008 Dr. Kahana worked at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) where she was a Health Scientist Administrator and most recently, Acting Deputy Branch Chief. At NIDA, Dr. Kahana managed an extensive grant portfolio including Career Development and Training programs. She has considerable expertise in program planning and evaluation and recent involvement in the NIH Next Generation Researcher Initiative. Dr. Kahana has a leadership role in program and policy aspects of research training and research career development and contribute to the evaluation of NIH policies and programs to grow and sustain the biomedical research workforce.

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Pamela Reed Kearney, M.D. is the Director of the Division of Human Subjects Research within the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). Prior to joining OER in February of 2019, she was the Deputy Chair of the Combined Neurosciences (CNS) IRB in the Intramural program for approximately a decade. In this capacity she sat on three, and at times four, duly constituted IRBs - chairing one and serving as the vice chair of the others. She graduated with Distinction from The George Washington School of Medicine and completed an Otolaryngology Residency at the George Washington University. She was a Neurolaryngology Clinical Fellow with National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the Medical Neurology Branch’s Laryngeal and Speech Section (LSS), and later served as the Staff Clinician of the section. She has worked clinically at the George Washington University, Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital and the NIH Clinical Center.

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Dr. Kehl is a Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of End-of-Life and Palliative Care Research overseeing a portfolio focused on end-of-life care and hospice awards. Dr. Kehl’s research background focuses on improving preparation of families for care in the last phase of life in the home hospice setting. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing and the Clinical Director of a Regional Hospice. Dr. Kehl is a Fellow in Palliative Care Nursing and holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Nursing.

Office of End-of-Life and Palliative Care Research (OEPCR)
Division of Extramural Science Programs
National Institute of Nursing Research

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Mr. J.P. Kim serves as an SBIR/STTR Program Manager and NIH Extramural Data Sharing Policy Officer in the NIH Office of Extramural Programs (OEP), under the Office of Extramural Research (OER), under the Office of the Director (OD), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). Prior to joining the NIH SBIR/STTR team, J.P. served as Director & Policy Officer of the Division of Extramural Inventions & Technology Resources in OPERA/OER for over 9 years. His responsibilities included working with the extramural community and developing, implementing, and providing policy guidance, oversight, education/training, and day-to-day management on extramural invention reporting, iEdison, and data sharing/management under NIH extramural funding agreements (including under SBIR awards). Prior to joining the extramural program under OER, J.P. worked in the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) under the Office of Intramural Research (OIR). Among his duties at OTT, J.P. served as a Senior Technology Licensing Specialist and Patent Advisor on inventions arising from the NIH intramural research program, negotiating technology licensing agreements that generated over $300 million in royalties for the NIH. He has over 30 years of experience working with patents and other intellectual property matters for businesses, universities, and other organizations. In addition to J.P.’s duties under the NIH SBIR/STTR programs which includes special expertise on SBIR IP issues, J.P. also works on NIH’s extramural data sharing/management policy and implementation matters. J.P. has also worked as a researcher at private companies and in the academic sector, as well as at national, international, and local intellectual property law firms working on patent, trademark, copyright, and international trade matters. J.P. received his J.D. and M.B.A. in International Business and International Marketing, an M.Sc. in Biotechnology, an M.P.P. in Health Policy with an additional certification in the Nonprofit Sector, and an M.A. in Liberal Studies with a thesis on the bioethics of human cloning, a B.Sc. in Zoology (Chemistry m.), and a B.A. in Psychology, as well as further graduate study in Genetics and Sustainability Leadership for a greener world. He earned degrees from Georgetown University, George Washington University, American University, the University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University. J.P. is a registered U.S. Patent Attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is also registered to practice before the U.S. Court of International Trade (USCIT), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), and the U.S. Supreme Court, among other courts.

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Dr. Julius N. Korley is a businessperson, entrepreneur and scientist with expertise in several areas of biotechnology, including biomaterials, drugs, drug-delivery systems and medical device development. Presently, Dr. Korley is the Director of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Partnerships for the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware . In this role, Dr. Korley is driving commercialization by helping UD faculty, postdocs and students develop their technologies and connect them to the startup and industry communities. Korley is also National faculty for I-Corps at NIH.

Prior to UD, Dr. Korley served as the Associate Director of the Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). This position focused on translational medicine and the commercialization of laboratory technologies that address unmet or poorly met human healthcare needs. In this role, Dr. Korley helped secure millions of dollars of investments in early-stage companies as well as gifts and grants and sponsored research for the university.

Dr. Korley also co-founded the biomedical engineering company Affinity Therapeutics and has successfully helped the company raise all non-dilutive funding to date. He has extensive experience in fundraising, business development, strategic partnering and licensing activities and was named Affinity’s inaugural President and CEO in August of 2015.

Prior to co-founding Affinity and joining CWRU, Dr. Korley first worked at Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), a then startup. In October of 2020, Momenta was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Korley earned a Ph.D. at Cornell University and an MBA at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU.

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Peter J. Kozel, Ph.D., is Chief of the Training and Mentored Research Section in the Scientific Review Branch at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the locus of review for all fellowship, mentored career development, training grant, research education, and conference grant applications assigned to NIDDK. Dr. Kozel previously held Scientific Review Officer (SRO) positions at NIDDK, the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). In these positions, he has managed the scientific review of contract proposals and center, clinical trial, research network, coordinating center, conference, fellowship, career development, training, cooperative agreement, loan repayment, and investigator-initiated research grant applications. He also served as a Scientific Program Analyst at NCCIH with responsibilities in training and special populations. Dr. Kozel has served on numerous trans-NIH committees, including the Training Advisory Committee, Review User’s Group, Peer Review Evergreening, Loan Repayment Program Policy Advisory Committee, Scientific Overlap Committee, and SRO Technical and Competencies Subcommittee. He was a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies. Dr. Kozel earned his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

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Lyndi Lahl is a Human Subjects Officer in the Division of Human Subjects Research (DHSR), Office of Extramural Research (OER). Ms. Lahl provides expertise and guidance in the areas of policy implementation and development for human subjects research. Ms. Lahl has served as an IRB member since 2013. Prior to joining DHSR, Ms. Lahl served as a Policy Health Specialist with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), Division of AIDS, as a Public Health Analyst with the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) and as a Research Nurse Specialist with the Intramural Division of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Ms Lahl received her BSN and M.S in Nursing Informatics from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, and a Certificate of Achievement from American University, School of Public Affairs, Key Executive Leader Program.

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Dr. Ashlee Tipton Lane received her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences with a concentration in vascular biology from Augusta University, Medical College of Georgia. Dr. Lane then worked as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering. Her postdoctoral research focused on targeted lymph node delivery of small molecule drugs using biomaterials to generate immunotherapy in rodent models of autoimmunity. As a Ph.D. student, Dr. Lane elucidated the mechanism by which renal T cells and sex of the animal contribute to hypertension in a rodent animal model. Prior to joining CSR, Dr. Lane worked as a program analyst and scientific review officer at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Yvonne Lau, MBBS, MBHL, PhD is the Director of the Division of Education and Development (DED) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). Dr. Lau received her medical degree from the University of Hong Kong, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCSEd) in the United Kingdom. She obtained her Master in Bioethics and Health Law (MBHL) and her PhD in Bioethics from the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Michael Lauer, M.D., is the Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he serves as the principal scientific leader and advisor to the Director of the NIH on all matters relating to the substance, quality, and effectiveness of the NIH extramural research program and administration. He received education and training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Albany Medical College, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and the NHLBI’s Framingham Heart Study. He spent 14 years at Cleveland Clinic as Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics. During his tenure at the Clinic, he led a federally funded internationally renowned clinical epidemiology program that applied big data from large-scale electronic health platforms to questions regarding the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease. From 2007 to 2015 he served as a Division Director at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), where promoted efforts to leverage big data infrastructure to enable high-efficiency population and clinical research and efforts to adopt a research funding culture that reflected data-driven policy. He has received numerous awards including the NIH Equal Employment Opportunity Award of the Year and the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Exceptional Federal Service in recognition of his efforts to grow a culture of learning and accountability.

Director, Office of Extramural Research, NIH
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Charlene E. Le Fauve, PhD, became the first Senior Advisor to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD) in December 2016. In this role, Dr. Le Fauve supports Dr. Marie Bernard who serves as the NIH acting COSWD as she leads NIH’s effort to diversify the biomedical research workforce by developing a vision and comprehensive strategy to expand recruitment and retention, and promote inclusiveness and equity throughout the biomedical research enterprise. Dr. Le Fauve came to COSWD from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) where she served as Deputy Director of the Office for Research on Disparities & Global Mental Health. Prior to joining NIMH, she was a Senior Policy Coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services where she led coordination and clearance activities of regulations, policy, and other reports for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and for implementation of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. Her federal career spans 20 years and includes leadership and health scientist roles at NIDA, NIAAA, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Dr. Le Fauve studied clinical psychology and behavioral medicine at the University of Georgia after completing her undergraduate education at Howard University. She completed her post-graduate work in the field of addiction medicine with an emphasis on perinatal addicted women and the treatment of co-occurring mental illness, addiction, and chronic pain at the Medical College of Virginia / Virginia Commonwealth University (MCV/VCU). She then joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Human Genetics and Psychiatry at MCV/VCU where she conducted behavior genetic research on African American adolescent twins and drug use as an NIH Principal Investigator on a Research Career Award, trained genetics counseling students, psychiatry residents and psychology interns in cultural diversity and clinical practice.

Office of the Director, NIH

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Dr. Alison Lin is Acting Chief of the Diversity Training Branch (DTB) of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD). In this capacity, she plays a central role in the strategic planning of the branch and program implementation to enhance workforce diversity in cancer research. Dr. Lin oversees the management of the NCI’s diversity-focused training programs, including both the extramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE) program and the Intramural CURE (iCURE) program.

Previously, Dr. Lin served as Program Director in DTB since 2012, and led the development, implementation and management of the Youth Enjoy Science (YES) Research Education Program (R25) and the iCURE program, She also led the management of the NCI Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research and the NCI Supplements to Promote Reentry and Reintegration into Biomedical and Behavioral Research Careers. Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Lin served as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. While at Harvard Medical School, she conducted interdisciplinary research focused on understanding the molecular interactions of membrane proteins and their signaling mechanisms, particularly those that modulate the cytoskeleton.

Dr. Lin received her Ph.D. in physics/biophysics from the University of California, Santa Barbara for work on the optimization of non-viral cationic lipid DNA carriers in gene delivery. She received her B.S. in physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

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Ms. Emily Linde is the Director of the Grants Management Program for the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She has been in grants management at the National Institutes of Health for 19 years. Prior to joining NIAID, Ms. Linde worked several other institutes, including in the Office of the Director (OD) in the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA); the National Cancer Institute (NCI); and the Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID)
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Matthew Lockhart, M.B.A. is the Acting Director of the Division of Loan Repayment (DLR) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this role, Mr. Lockhart is responsible for administering and providing leadership for the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) as well as representing NIH on matters related to the operations, policy development and evaluation of the LRPs. Prior to this position, Mr. Lockhart served as a program analyst in DLR, where he provided process and policy guidance to Program Officers and Scientific Review Officers for the 24 NIH Institutes and Centers that participate in the NIH LRPs. Mr. Lockhart was also an architect of several policy papers and analyses that assessed the impacts of newly enacted legislation, such as the 21st Century Cures Act, on the NIH LRPs. Before coming to NIH, Mr. Lockhart led the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. Lockhart’s academic background includes a B.A. in Mathematics from Gallaudet University and an M.B.A. in Organizational Management from the University of Maryland.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Jon R. Lorsch, Ph.D., became the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in August 2013.

In this position, Lorsch oversees the Institute's $2.9 billion budget, which supports basic research that increases understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

NIGMS supports more than 3,000 investigators and 5,000 research grants–around 11 percent of the total number of research grants funded by NIH as a whole. Additionally, NIGMS supports around 26 percent of the NRSA trainees who receive assistance from NIH.

Lorsch came to NIGMS from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was a professor in the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1999 and became a full professor in 2009.

A leader in RNA biology, Lorsch studies the initiation of translation, a major step in controlling how genes are expressed. When this process goes awry, viral infection, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer can result. To dissect the mechanics of translation initiation, Lorsch and collaborators developed a yeast-based system and a wide variety of biochemical and biophysical methods. The work also has led to efforts to control translation initiation through chemical reagents, such as drugs. Lorsch continues this research as a tenured investigator in the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

NIGMS supported Lorsch's research from 2000-2013. He also received grants from the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and National Institute of Mental Health, as well as from other funding organizations.

Lorsch received a B.A. in chemistry from Swarthmore College in 1990 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard University in 1995, where he worked in the laboratory of Jack Szostak, Ph.D. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University in the laboratory of Daniel Herschlag, Ph.D.

Lorsch is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and other papers. He has also been the editor of six volumes of Methods in Enzymology and has been a reviewer for numerous scientific journals. He is the author on two awarded U.S. patents. His honors include six teaching awards from Johns Hopkins.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences

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Dr. Philippe Marmillot currently works at NIH/NIAAA in the Review Branch as a Scientific Review Officer. Dr. Marmillot obtained his doctorate from the Univ. of Technology of Compiègne (Theoretical and experimental studies of a compartmentalized enzymatic reactor). This work was extended to theoretical studies of the heterogeneous enzymatic properties of the PFK, followed by experimental enzymatic studies of the LDH in a free or bound environment. After molecular biology studies on transcription factors, he carried out studies on the effect of chronic EtOH consumption on liver metabolism, and the relationship between moderate EtOH consumption and cardioprotection. His most recent paper is: Quercetin up-regulates PON 1 gene expression with concomitant protection against LDL oxidation.

Marguerite Matthews, PhD, is a Scientific Program Manager in the Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Workforce Diversity at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She manages the Research Supplements to Promote Diversity and Re-Entry and Re-integration into Health-Related Research Careers , and addresses inquiries related to the NRSA Predoctoral Fellowships to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (F31), the NIH Blueprint Program for Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences (BP-ENDURE, R25), the NIH Neuroscience Development for Advancing the Careers of a Diverse Research Workforce (R25), and "Appropriate Representation" guidance for R13 Conference Grants. Before working at NINDS, Dr. Matthews began her career at the NIH as a 2016-2018 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Extramural Research, within the Divisions of Biomedical Research Workforce and Loan Repayment. She earned a BS in biochemistry from Spelman College and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral neuroscience at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), where she also served as director of the OHSU Fellowship for Diversity and Inclusion in Research and the YES! Youth Engaged in Science outreach program.

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Mr. Omar McCrimmon, a native Washingtonian, is the Division of Loan Repayment’s Communications and Outreach Specialist. He joins DLR with over six years of experience in health/science communications. Prior to joining the DLR, Omar spent five years at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) where he managed media relations, social media, and the exhibit program. From there, he moved to the Alzheimer’s Association where he played a role in managing public policy, and diversity program media relations. Omar holds a B.A. in Journalism from Norfolk State University, and a M.A. from Trinity University.

Division of Loan Repayment
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Glen McGugan, Ph.D. is a Program Officer in the Parasitology and International Programs Branch (PIPB) in the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He oversees a portfolio of research grants focused on various aspects of the biology of medically relevant protozoan and helminth parasites. He also serves as the contracting officer’s scientific and technical representative for the Schistosomiasis Resource Center. He is particularly interested in global health, advising trainees and early career researchers and currently oversees the International Research in Infectious Diseases (IRID) program. Dr. McGugan received a B.S. from the University of South Carolina, Ph.D. from Clemson University, and conducted postdoctoral research as an IRTA fellow in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases at NIAID..

Jessica McKlveen, PhD, is a Scientific Program Manager at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) where she supports the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study. The HBCD Study will recruit a large cohort of pregnant women from regions of the country significantly affected by the opioid crisis and follow them and their children longitudinally through early childhood. The study will collect information beginning at birth and through early childhood, including structural and functional brain imaging; anthropometrics; medical history; family history; biospecimens; and social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Jessica received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati where she studied the role of the prefrontal glucocorticoid receptor in synaptic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral stress adaptation. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying the impact of binge-like alcohol consumption during adolescence or adulthood on synaptic plasticity and behavior. Prior to coming to NIDA, Jessica served as Scientific Review Officer (SRO) at the National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (NCCIH) and a Department of Defense (DoD) contractor supporting the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMP) as a Science Officer and the Medical Simulation and Information Sciences Research Program/Joint Program Committee-1 as a Technology Transfer Specialist and Assistant Portfolio Manager.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

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Matt leads the newly-formed SEED Office to accelerate NIH-funded biomedical innovations from bench to bedside. SEED supports a comprehensive translational research ecosystem that includes a national network of academic proof-of-concept centers and a small business program that invests over $1 billion annually in a portfolio of more than 1500 life science companies. SEED also provides technical and entrepreneurial advisory services and builds relationships with business, finance, and healthcare stakeholders to ensure these innovations will impact patients’ lives. Matt has a diverse background in academia, biomedical small business, congressional policy, and NIH program development and management. He served as the director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination and created and led the National Eye Institute’s Office of Translational Research. His previous experience also includes service as the principal scientist for the bionic eye company Second Sight Medical Products and as a staff member on both the United States Senate and House of Representatives committees responsible for science, technology, and innovation policy. Matt holds a B.S. in Optical Engineering from the University of Rochester and a M.A and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.

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Susan is a Grants Management Specialist at NIDCR. Susan has been a grants manager for 21 years. Through her years of experience she has a highly diversified grant portfolio including research project grants, NRSA fellowship and training awards, career development awards, foreign grants and clinical trial networks. Ms. Medve serves on a number of NIDCR/NIH grants working groups and committees.

Amanda Melillo, Ph.D., is the Chief of the Integrative Biology and Infectious Diseases Branch and the Director of the Oral Opportunistic Pathogens and Viral Disease Program at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Melillo earned her B.S. in biology and biochemistry from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a Ph.D. in microbial disease from Albany Medical College in New York. She conducted postdoctoral research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the Division of Bacterial Products within the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). Her post-doctoral research focused on examining the specific role of immune mediators, both innate and adaptive, in intracellular vaccination models. Prior to her current role, Dr. Melillo worked as a Health Specialist and Program Director at the NIDCR and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), respectively.

Lisa Moeller, CRA is a Supervisory Grants Management Officer in the Grants Administration Branch at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). Her 25 years of experience as a research administrator includes pre- and post-award experience with NRSA institutional training grants and fellowships. NIGMS supports over 4000 NRSA pre- and postdoctoral trainees annually through fellowships (F’s) and institutional training grants (T’s), equal to approximately twenty-five percent of the overall NIH Kirschstein-NRSA budget. Prior to joining NIH in 2000, Lisa worked at the American Red Cross Jerome H. Holland Laboratory as a research administrator at the departmental level and later as the Manager of the Sponsored Programs Office.

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Brent C. Morse is the Director of the Division of Compliance Oversight within the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland. He is a 1987 graduate of Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and completed his residency in laboratory animal medicine with the US Army. His previous positions included Acting Chief of the Veterinary Medicine Branch of the Division of Veterinary Resources at NIH while a Commissioned Officer with the U.S. Public Health Service and several management positions as a Veterinary Corps Officer with the U.S. Army.

Office Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Taunton Paine, MA is the Director of the Scientific Data Sharing Policy Division in the Office of Science Policy at the NIH. Taunton has been with the Office of Science Policy since 2011. His division is responsible for issues relating to data sharing policy, including issuance of the recent NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, oversight of the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy, and management of the Data Science Policy Council. Previously, he led the Clinical Research Policy team as a senior policy analyst and advised on matters related to the Common Rule, Certificates of Confidentiality, HIPAA, and other privacy and human participant protections issues. Before that, he worked on issues relating to dual use research. He holds a dual master’s degree from Columbia University and London School of Economics and Political Science, where he studied science and technology in the history of international relations.

Office of Science Policy (OSP), NIH

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Dr. B. Duane Price is the Acting Director at the Division of Receipt and Referral (DRR) at CSR.

Dr. Price previously served as the deputy director of the Office of Grants Management and Scientific Review at the National Center for Advancing Translational Science. Prior to that, he spent thirteen years with the Scientific Review Program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Price earned a Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he studied developmental biology in fruit flies. He did his postdoctoral training at the UW-Madison Institute for Molecular Virology and then went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham as a research assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology. There, he was an NIH-funded investigator developing potential HIV vaccine vectors based on amplification of Nodamura virus RNA in yeast.

Center for Scientific Review (CSR), NIH

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Dr. Pritchard is an Animal Welfare Program Specialist in the NIH/OER/Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, in the Division of Policy and Education.

Prior to joining OLAW in 2019, Cate was a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State University in the Center for Disease Dynamics, exploring zoonotic diseases. Cate completed her PhD at Penn State University in Wildlife Biology, where her dissertation examined puma-vicuña predator-prey interactions in the high Andes of Argentina, and noninvasive metrics of stress in wildlife. She earned her Master of Science in Biology at the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, where she focused on the hydrodynamic dispersal of larval oysters. Prior to graduate school, Cate lea both domestic and international ecological research exploring eutrophication and herbivore removal on Caribbean coral reefs and African Savannahs. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Wisconsin, Superior.

Dr. Nishadi Rajapakse is a program director in the Health Inequities and Global Health branch within the Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science. Prior to coming to NHLBI, she spent 10 years at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). At NIMHD, she directed the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Centers for and Health Disparities Research Focused on Precision Medicine (U54) initiative, a collaborative research program on exploring precision medicine to promote health equity and advance the science of minority health and health disparities combining expertise in precision medicine, population health disparities, and the science of translation, implementation and dissemination to address one or more documented health disparities. In 2011, she led a new collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a novel pilot initiative to establish environmental health disparities (EHD) cores within existing NIMHD Centers of Excellence program. Subsequently, she managed the Centers of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research Program, a joint undertaking with NIEHS, NICHD and EPA to better understand environmentally driven health disparities and improve access to healthy environments for health disparity populations. In 2016, in collaboration with The National Institute on Digestive Kidney Disease (NIDDK) and The National Institute on Infectious Disease (NIAID), she co-led the successful launch of the APOL1 Long-term Kidney Transplantation Outcomes Network (APOLLO) Clinical Centers (Collaborative U01). In addition, she was a Program Official for the NIMHD RO1 program, SBIR-STTR and the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program. More recently, she led an effort to establish common data elements for social determinants of health collection on the PhenX Toolkit. Dr. Rajapakse received her PhD in Molecular Medicine & Translational Sciences from Wake Forest University studying traumatic brain injury in adults and newborns and targeting mitochondria in developing therapies for hypoxia-ischemia induced sequalae. During her postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), she examined molecular mechanisms of cardiac injury during ischemia-reperfusion and genetic and environmental risk factors in the development of cardiovascular disease. Additionally, Dr. Rajapakse has a master’s degree in clinical research from Duke University. She has also served as a guest editor for the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved and received numerous awards, including NIH and Institute director awards.

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), NIH

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Sahar Rais joined the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) as the Deputy Chief Grants Management Officer in June 2020. She has worked in the fields of grants management, policy and compliance within the federal government and the grantee community for the past 15 years. In addition to working at NIAMS she began her tenure with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes on Aging (NIA) as a graduate student, worked for the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) as a Grants Management Specialist and has worked in compliance at the Office for Policy and Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) for nearly 10 years prior to returning to NIA as a team lead. She has also spent several years on the grantee side working as a Director and Manager of Sponsored Research and Intellectual Property at Veteran Administration non-profits and research organizations in California.

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Dr. Dharm Rathore is Chief of the Scientific Review Branch at National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH where he leads a team of 11 Scientific Review Officers. The team manages the peer review of NIH grant application and contract proposal submissions focused on Substance Use Disorder Research with a mission to advance science on the causes and consequences of substance use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health. Dr. Rathore has 13+ years of experience in managing NIH peer review activities and oversees 60+ peer review meetings annually. Before taking this position, Dr. Rathore was as a Branch Chief for AIDS Research Review Branch at NIAID where he led a team managing the peer review of NIH grant applications focused on developing vaccines and therapeutics for HIV. From 2003-2008, Dr. Rathore was an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech. in Blacksburg, VA.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), NIH

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Dr. Nicole Redmond is a board-certified internal medicine physician who completed her MD/PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, South Carolina. She completed her internal medicine (primary care track) residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health as a part of her training in the Harvard Fellowships in General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to joining NHLBI, Dr. Redmond was Assistant Professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Dr. Redmond’s research portfolio academically, and now as a program official, is focused on intervention research related to the psychological, social, behavioral, and clinical contributors to cardiovascular health and disease. She also has a significant interest in the career development of clinicians and scientists, particularly those who are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Hypertension, and Journal of the American Heart Association.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIH

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Rob Rivers, PhD is a program director at National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). He leads programs that help to foster the recruitment and training of underrepresented biomedical investigators. He leads the Short Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons Program , Diversity Supplement Program and the F-31 Diversity Portfolio for NIDDK.

In addition to his work in science he is active in the local and global community and was instrumental in starting the international non-profit organization Umbrella Initiatives Foundation that helps in providing improved educational opportunities to children living in poverty in Peru and Bolivia (www.umbrellainitiatives.org).  He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Cambridge and his B.S. degree also in chemistry from Kentucky State University.

National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK), NIH

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Dr. Laura Roman is the Customer Relations Manager and Product Owner for eSubmissions, Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking (ASSIST) and CRIMS at eRA. She received her PhD in Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine studying epithelial cell polarity. Dr. Roman also has a MBA from the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola University, Maryland. She did postdoctoral studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg Germany, and was a Howard Hughes fellow at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Prior to coming to NIH in 2004, Dr. Roman was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute where her lab focused on understanding the factors controlling neural crest cell development. Before joining eRA in April 2016, she was an Associate Director in the Division of Receipt and Referral at the Center for Scientific Review.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Program Mercedes Rubio, a program director in the Division of Clinical Innovation, manages a portfolio of Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program grants. Prior to joining NCATS, Rubio was a program director at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), where she managed the Bridges to the Baccalaureate Research Training Program; the National Research Mentoring Network of the NIH Common Fund’s Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce Initiative; the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards; and the Research to Understand and Inform Interventions that Promote the Research Careers of Individuals in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences portfolios. She also served as a program officer in the NIGMS Postdoctoral Research Associate Program.

Prior to her tenure at NIGMS, Rubio was chief of the Psychopathology Risk and Protective Factors Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and was assistant director of that Institute’s Individual Research Fellowship Program. Rubio worked on the Physician–Scientist Workforce Report and managed the NIH Loan Repayment Program at NIMH and NIGMS.

Rubio holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University, Bakersfield, and a doctorate in medical sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she also completed postdoctoral training in nursing in the area of HIV intervention and health disparities.

National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), NIH

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Kathy Salaita, Sc.D., is Chief of the Scientific Review Branch. In this role, she is responsible for the supervisory management and oversight of the Scientific Review Branch and strategic planning activities as relevant to the peer review process. She provides review-related policy advice to NIAMS leadership and extramural program staff and participates in the development of funding opportunity announcements. She also uses her expertise as a member of numerous trans-NIH committees. Finally, she serves as Scientific Review Officer for reviews of both Contracts and of Clinical Trials.

Dr. Salaita joined the NIAMS in May 2013. Prior to that, she held various positions at NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR), including Acting Chief of the Healthcare Delivery and Methodology Integrated Review Group, Scientific Review Officer for the Health Services and Organization study section, and Referral Officer with the Division of Receipt and Referral. She also won the CSR Director’s Award for Mentoring. Before joining CSR, Dr. Salaita worked as a Program Officer at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

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Desirée Salazar, Ph.D, is a program director in the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). She directs the NIGMS intramural Postdoctoral Research Associate Training (PRAT) program. She manages the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards (IRACDA) program, and predoctoral research training grants in Cellular, Biochemical, and Molecular Sciences (T32). She also manages research grants in the area of stem cell biology and regeneration in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.

Salazar was most recently a scientific program manager at the American Society for Cell Biology. Formerly, she was a program education coordinator for the IRACDA program at the University of California, San Diego. She earned a B.S. in neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine. Salazar conducted postdoctoral research and was an IRACDA fellow at the University of California, San Diego.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).

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Dr. Fátima Sancheznieto (she/her, he/him) is an assistant researcher at the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research in the UW – Madison department of medicine. She is also a Co-Investigator of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) Coordination Center (CC). She completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Oxford University, where she studied the environmental signals important for blood stem cell formation during human development. Fátima was trained as a peer supporter by the Oxford University Counseling Center and has since advocated for systemic and cultural changes to improve the mental health and training environments of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. She has served on a working group for the Next Generation Researchers Initiative at the National Institutes of Health and is currently the President of Future of Research, a nonprofit organization that advocates for, empowers, and champions early career researchers. She is currently working with Drs. Christine Pfund, Christine Sorkness, and Angela Byars-Winston to study and evaluate STEMM training environments and interventions and develop evidence-based mentor training programs. As part of her role with the NRMN CC, she has overseen and coordinated the use of common measures across the 11 NRMN Phase II study sites and has helped create a library of said measures and resources on how to use them.

Dr. David Saslowsky is the Deputy Director of the Basic Science program in the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition (DDN) where he helps coordinate the development of basic science initiatives and research priorities. He also facilitates the overall administrative management of the Division. In addition, he serves as the program director for the Career Development ("K") awards in the DDN. These awards support individuals with a Ph.D., M.D., or an equivalent degree to receive training in both basic and clinical research related to digestive diseases, liver disease, nutrition, obesity, and pancreatic diseases. In conjunction with this program, I administer a small grant program for K01/K08/K23 recipients (R03), which is meant to amplify the candidate's research progress in areas that will lead to independent RPG funding (e.g. R01). Additionally, I coordinate the NIH Loan Repayment program for NIDDK and DDN, serve as the Program Official for the Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium (ISCC), and am part of the program team for the SPARC Common fund Program (Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions).

Joe Schumaker is an eRA Communication Specialist for the Office of Extramural Research. Joe joined the team in November 2011. Previous to this, Joe was the Director of Services for a small IT consulting company based out of Decatur GA. As such, he travelled extensively around the country and Canada implementing, consulting on, and customizing a communications and collaborative solution called FirstClass. His current responsibilities for eRA include communications about the status of eRA Commons, writing the NIH's eRA Items of Interests articles, and the development and production of tutorial videos on various aspects of the grant process. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Stetson University and a Master’s of Science Education from the University of Florida.

Division of Communications and Outreach (DCO)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH Contact Information

Michael Sesma, Ph.D., is chief of the Postdoctoral Training Branch in the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD) at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. In this role, Dr. Sesma oversees postdoctoral programs for research training, postdoctoral fellowships, career development programs, as well as the Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) and research programs in training interventions. Dr. Sesma is also a program officer for the Genetics of Behavior and Circadian Biology research grant portfolio in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.
Dr. Sesma began his NIH career at NIGMS in 1994 as a scientific review administrator in the Office of Scientific Review and as a program director in the institute’s Division of Genetics and Developmental Biology. In 2002, he moved to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where he was chief of the Research Scientist Development Program in the Office for Special Populations. He returned to NIGMS in 2012 as a branch chief in TWD.
Dr. Sesma earned his B.A. in biology and psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and the Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Riverside. He conducted postdoctoral research at Vanderbilt University. Prior to joining NIH, Sesma served on the faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis School of Optometry and the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

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Dr. Lana Shekim is the Director for the Voice and Speech Programs in the Division of a Scientific Programs (DSP) at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). She is responsible for the supervision of a comprehensive research program in voice and speech sciences and disorders. Dr. Shekim serves as the NIDCD representative to the NIH Global Health Research Working Group, the NIH International Representatives Committee, the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee, the NIH Science of Behavioral Change Working Group, the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Working Group and the NIH Rehabilitation Research Coordinating Committee. She joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2001.

Prior to joining the NIH, she served on the faculty of the George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC and directed the Speech-Language Pathology Service at the GWU Medical Center and was a member of the GWU Voice Clinic. Dr. Shekim’s clinical expertise is in the management of individuals with acquired neurologic communication disorders. She earned her doctorate from the University of Florida in Gainesville where she examined discourse production in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Shekim completed postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuropsychology at Johns Hopkins University.

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), NIH

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Grace L. Shen, Ph.D., is a Program Director at the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she has served as the Group Leader and Program Officer for the extramural program in retinal diseases research since 2012. She received education and training at Imperial College (London, UK), Institute of Psychiatry (London, UK), St. Louis University School of Medicine, and National Cancer Institute (NCI). Her research in oncogene led to the seminal finding in the identification of the involvement of the myconcogene in the nonrandom chromosomal rearrangement event in cancer and was recognized as an expert in the myb oncogene field.

During her extramural career with NIH, Dr. Shen has also served as Director of the Ocular Immunology Program and the Group Leader and Director for the Cornea Diseases Program at NEI (2003-2011). She was a member of the National Cancer Institute’s extramural program where she managed grants in the Cancer Immunology and Cancer Genetics Programs (1991-2000). Dr. Shen has also worked in the biotech sector as the Scientific Director of the Oncology Program at Gene Logic Inc. (2000-2003). While there, she developed and managed a multi-million Affymetrix microarray project to generate a database with gene expression profile for over 4500 tumor and control samples with searchable clinical parameters for human patients. She also served as a reviewer for an NIH-SBIR study section.

National Eye Institute (NEI), NIH

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Dr. Julia Slutsman is a bioethicist and Director of Genomic Data Sharing Policy Implementation in the Office of Extramural Research, NIH. Her work focusses on the operationalization of activities that support genomic data sharing while maintaining research participant confidentiality and data privacy.

Previously, Dr. Slutsman worked as the Director of Research Regulatory Affairs at Children’s National Medical Center and was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She has extensive expertise in implementing human subject protections, clinical research compliance and in developing policy for research oversight of pediatric and adult clinical research programs. Dr. Slutsman has held numerous positions within the National Institutes of Health. She worked as a bioethicist in the NIH Office of Human Subject Protections and in the Department of Bioethics. She served as the bioethicist for the National Children’s Study at the Eunice K. Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

She has conducted and published empirical bioethics research in a number of areas. Her current research interests include the following: informed consent and data sharing in research, ethical and policy implications of single IRB review of research, parental decision-making in research involving children and ethical issues related to the review and conduct of public health emergency research.

Dr. Slutsman earned her Ph.D. from the Program in Law, Ethics and Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the ethics of public health and cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Mr. Philip Smith is an Assistant Compliance Officer within the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA). Prior to joining OPERA, Philip was a Grants Management Specialist at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for 6 years. Philip also has worked in the accounting field in the area of reinsurance for a large financial services company. He has received his BS in Business Administration with a specialization in International Business from the University of Baltimore and his MS in Accounting and Business Advisory Services from University of Baltimore & Towson University Joint Master’s Program.

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Betsy Snell is a Systems Policy Analyst in the OER’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA), Systems Policy Branch. In this capacity, she works with key NIH stakeholders to ensure implementation of critical systems and policy requirements across the NIH. Prior to joining OPERA, Snell gained over 17 years of grants experience through Grants Management and Program Analyst positions with NIH/NCATS, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Project Agency, and DHS/FEMA. She has worked closely with businesses, educational institutions, and federal, state, and local governments agencies to ensure compliance with the CFR, FAR, and audit requirements.

Dr. Shardell Spriggs is a Program Director at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the Division of Translational Research and works directly with the NIH Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Program.

Shardell has dedicated her career to diverse scientific study and possesses a strong background in the areas of academic research, translational science, public health-oriented research grants, and project and resource management.

Shardell received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in the laboratory of Michael F. Summers, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She has taught chemistry lecture at lab at the undergraduate level before pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship with David Weber at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where she conducted translational research within the Center for Biomolecular Therapeutics.

Dr. Spriggs has participated in and served on a number of diversity initiative panels, such as the MARC U*STAR Program, the Meyerhoff Graduate Program, ADVANCE and UMBC Graduate Horizons. She continues to be interested in increasing diversity and exposure for underrepresented groups in the STEAM fields, at NINDS she participates on the Diversity Workgroups and co-chairs the Health Equity Workgroup.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), NIH

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Dr. Ashim Subedee is the Academic Innovation Lead within SEED (NIH’s Small business Education and Entrepreneurial Development Office). Ashim oversees and coordinates programs at NIH to foster academic innovation and entrepreneurship including the coordination of NIH’s academic proof-of-concept network that includes 92 research institutions across 34 states and Puerto Rico. Ashim has a diverse background in academia, small business programs, biomedical innovation, and NIH program development and management. Prior to SEED, Ashim was a Program Director at the National Cancer Institute's SBIR Development Center where he managed small business program grants and contracts with a focus on cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, cancer prevention, digital health, and therapeutic devices. He also initiated and led several programs including investor initiatives, mentoring programs, translational workshops, and targeted funding opportunities. Ashim came to the NIH as a Presidential Management Fellow. During the fellowship, Ashim also spent 6 months at the FDA CDER. Ashim received his PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University where his dissertation work was focused on molecular mechanisms of triple negative breast cancer.

Small Business Education and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED), OER

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Dr. Elyse Sullivan is a Communications Strategist and the Content Development Team Lead in the Division of Communications and Outreach (DCO) within the Office of Extramural Research (OER). Dr. Sullivan works with subject-matter experts to disseminate important grants process and policy information for both external and internal audiences by developing websites, blogs, newsletters, and multimedia training tools. Dr. Sullivan received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she studied translational electrophysiological biomarkers in schizophrenia.

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Kristin Ta joined the Division of Grants Policy as a Grants Policy Analyst. She has been with NIH for over 7 years, most recently serving as a Senior Program Analyst in the Office of Management Assessment, Division of Program Integrity, where she led reviews of allegations of misuse of NIH grant and contract funds and employee misconduct. Prior to that, Kristin worked as a post-award administrator in the Department of Biochemistry at George Washington University. Kristin studied Health and Societies and Environmental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and has an MPH in Health Promotion from George Washington University.

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research (NIH/OER)
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Mr. Ryan Talesnik has been a Grants Management Specialist at NICHD/NIH since 2006. Mr. Talesnik has a highly diversified grant portfolio including research project grants, NRSA fellowship and training awards, career development awards, foreign grants and clinical trial networks. Mr. Talesnik serves as the Grants Management liaison on a number of NICHD working groups and committees and serves as the Grants Management contact for the K99/R00 program.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH

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Mr. Corey D. Taylor has 9 years of HHS grants management and cooperative agreement experience. Corey joined OPERA as an Assistant Grants Compliance Officer in the Spring of 2020 after 8 years of managing Federal grants and cooperative agreements at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a Senior Grants Management Specialist. Corey managed a portfolio of awards involving the Tribal community, State Health Departments, and Colleges and Universities conducting research based activities. Corey also served as the GrantSolutions Branch trainer for CDC contractors onboarding as Grants Management Specialist during his tenure. Corey provided grantee technical assistance which involved the administration of CDC grants and cooperative agreements utilizing the GrantSolutions database. Corey was involved in all aspects of managing CDC portfolio of grants from cradle-to-grave. In addition, Corey provided programmatic and fiscal technical assistance to internal and external CDC stakeholders to ensure Federal funds were safeguarded, Federal grants requirements relating to regulations, policies and legislature mandates are adhered during the performance period.

Prior to joining the Federal sector, Corey worked as a Senior Grants Administrator in the Health and Human Services Department at Fulton County Government. In his role, Corey managed a portfolio of faith-based and 501c3 agencies that received annual grant funds to provide a wide array of programmatic activities and services to citizens of Fulton County, Georgia. Those activities and services ranged from Housing and Homeless wrap-a-round services, Children and Youth after-school activities to providing Workforce Development Training to displaced or under-skilled citizens. Corey conducted site visits to ensure funded recipients were compliant in utilizing awarded funds to provide specific activities and services as indicated in their initial application request for funding. In addition, Corey would provide guidance to assist funded agencies with maximizing their grant dollars that would have the most impact in providing services to citizens of Fulton County, Georgia.

Corey possesses a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with dual concentrations in Finance and Management awarded from Longwood University.

Division of Grants Compliance and Oversight (DGCO)
Office of Policy for Extramural Research (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Dr. Michelle M. Timmerman is the Associate Director/Guide Liaison Officer at the Division of Receipt and Referral (DRR) at the Center for Scientific Review (CSR).

Prior to joining DRR, she served in the Office of Extramural Research as the Acting Director and Guide Policy Officer of the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts. She also served as Director of the AREA (R15) Program, which supports student-driven research at small colleges and universities. Prior to that, Dr. Timmerman served as a Scientific Review Officer at NIAID, where she managed the review of career development awards and training grants by the MID standing committee, in addition to managing the review of research grants, contracts, and complex mechanisms in Special Emphasis Panels. Dr. Timmerman began her federal career as a regulatory reviewer of sterile drug manufacturing at the Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Timmerman earned her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and conducted postdoctoral research in bacterial pathogenesis at the University of Iowa.

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Jacquelyn Tubbs, DVM, joined the Division of Compliance Oversight as a Veterinary Medical Officer in September 2019. She received her DVM from Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine. She was the first person to complete a post-doctoral fellowship in laboratory animal medicine in the National Toxicology Program (NTP) at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Prior to joining the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW), she established the Gnotobiotic Core at Duke University and served as the Technical Director. She is also a diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Dennis A. Twombly, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director of Extramural Policy at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In this position, he is involved in developing and interpreting NIH grant policies and in administering the institute’s extramural funding programs. He is also NICHD’s Training Officer, overseeing various types of training awards including NRSA fellowships, career development awards, institutional training programs (T32 and K12), and education grants (R25). Dr. Twombly is Chair of NICHD’s Training Policy Committee and co-Chair of the NIH-wide Training Advisory Committee (TAC).
Dr. Twombly received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the UCLA Brain Research Institute, with primary focus on the neurophysiology of epilepsy. Prior to joining the NIH, he held a faculty position at Northwestern University School of Medicine (Chicago) in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology. He was Principal Investigator of a variety of NIH research project grants on mechanisms of action of antiepileptic drugs, effects of alcohol on neuronal ion channels and receptors, and mechanisms of alcohol and aging in cardiac ventricular myocytes. Dr. Twombly came to NIH in 2001, serving for 9 years as Program Director of Neurophysiology & Pharmacology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). He assumed his current position at NICHD in 2009. Along with his scientific and administrative activities, Dr. Twombly has played a major role at NIH in organizing various science education and outreach activities for middle-school and high school students and other members of the public.

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Lauren Ullrich received her PhD and MS in Neuroscience from Georgetown University, researching memory in early Alzheimer's disease for her thesis and also published on teaching, pedagogy, and professional development in science. She received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in psychobiology. Prior to coming to NINDS as an AAAS Science & Technology Fellow, Lauren worked for the Society for Neuroscience in a range of policy and programmatic areas, including government and public affairs; scientific rigor and reproducibility; workforce and training; and animals in research. At NINDS, she helps coordinate NINDS’s diversity activities, which span the pipeline from neuroscience education outreach (grades K-12) to funding opportunities and mentoring networks across critical career transition points.

Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Diversity
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), NIH

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Mr. Upmeyer attended Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa where he received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture in 1996. He also received a Master of Arts degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL 1999 and Master of Public Administration from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University, Addison, IL in 2003. He is a Level III certified FAC Contracting Officer Representative (COR) and Level III FAC Program/Project Manager(P/PM). He is also a Level 1 certified FAC Contracting Officer (CO) and a Certified Federal Grants Manager; Management Concepts.

Mr. Upmeyer previously worked as a Project Manager/Contract Administrator for several Chicagoland Municipal Agencies and the State of Illinois prior to joining the Federal Government. In 2003 he was selected in the OPM Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program where he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs, State Cemetery Grants Program in Washington, DC and also rotated to Hines VA Hospital in Chicago, Illinois as a special assistant to the Hospital Director working on telemedicine initiatives. He then moved on to the Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL working on Government Owned Contractor Operated Laboratory Contracts and Small Business Innovation Research Grants. He then was promoted at the Department of Labor, OSHA, Arlington Heights, IL on the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program where he developed curriculum and analyzed training evaluation data and was a COR. Mr. Upmeyer transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, Chicago, IL to work as an Auditor for the Inspector General where he performed yellow book audits and audited grants and contracts. He was promoted to the Director of Planning and Support, Department of Labor, OFCCP, Chicago. Next, he worked on a Multi-Billion Dollar SeaPort-e contract as a COR (Contracting Officer Representative) at the Carderock Naval Warfare Center, Potomac, MD working on Environmental Research and Development for Ship and Submarine Systems. He then took a contract with a NOLIJ Consulting at Fort Dietrich, MD for the Army Medical Command working on developing a digital community of practice website for their procurement policies. Next he joined the Department of Housing and Urban Development where he served as a Cooperative Agreement Portfolio Manager and COR.

He has served as an Other Transaction Agreement Specialist at the NIH, Office of Director AllofUs Genetic Research Program and the AIM REACH Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity Program. He is now an Other Transactions Agreement Policy Analyst with the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration.

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Dr. Valdez serves at the NIH Extramural Research Integrity Officer in the Office of Extramural Programs (OEP), in the Office of Extramural Research (OER). In this role, she is responsible for training NIH Extramural staff and Research Integrity Officers on handling allegations of research misconduct in NIH-funded extramural activities and for performing the initial review and referral of allegations to the appropriate oversight agencies. Prior to joining the OER, Dr. Valdez was the Manager of Publication Ethics for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) where she handled all allegations of scientific misconduct in ASBMB journals, including the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Dr. Valdez received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley where she studied T cell development. She carried out her Postdoctoral training in the Immunology Discovery department at Genentech, where she focused on both basic research and pre-clinical drug development. Dr. Valdez continued her research as an NIH Intramural Staff Scientist in the NIAID Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Disease.

Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH
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Anil Wali is a Program Director in the Integrated Networks Branch of the NCI’s CRCHD since 2009. In this role, Dr. Wali contributes to the grants management of CRCHD’s Geographic Management of Cancer Health Disparities Program. He also provides technical and scientific expertise to the Comprehensive Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (CPACHE U54) program.

Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Wali served as Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Pathology at the NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan. While at Wayne State University, Dr. Wali served as Principal Investigator on a Veterans Administration Merit Review award funded project on the Role of Ubiquitin-Proteasome Pathway in Mesothelioma Carcinogenesis. Dr. Wali conducted NCI Clinical trial on asbestos exposed patient populations to determine their risk for developing Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma using high throughput Genomics and Proteomics technologies.

Integrated Networks Branch

National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH

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Kristin Wegner is the Lead Other Transactions Policy Analyst for the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) in the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research (OER). OPERA is NIH’s central point for Other Transactions Authorities providing stakeholders with policy, guidance, technical assistance, and consultation. Kristin has more than 16 years of Federal service where she has served as an Other Transactions Agreements Officer and Senior Grants Management Specialist at the NIH; an Education Program Specialist at the U.S. Department of Education; and a Lead Regional Recruiter for the Peace Corps.

Prior to joining Federal service, Kristin served as an instructor (pedagogist) at universities in the states of Maine and Michigan; a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Moldova; a K-12 teacher, coach, mortgage analyst, and recreation and sports specialist in the state of Minnesota. Kristin Wegner earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education, Developmental and Adapted Physical Education, and Coaching, and her Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Relations. Her post-grad work has been in leadership and administration.

Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research (OER), NIH

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Bio Coming Soon!

Crystal Wolfrey is the Director of the Office of Grants Administration and the Chief Grants Management Officer for the National Cancer Institute. She joined the NCI in January 1987, and has served in a variety of roles, including as a Grants Management Specialist and a special grants expert for clinical trials. She has also served as a Team Leader and a Branch Chief, as well as the OGA Deputy Director. Prior to joining the NCI, she was a program specialist in the Scholars-in-Residence Program at the Fogarty International Center. Crystal is a graduate of the University of Maryland where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in marketing research.

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Nastaran (Nas) Zahir, Ph.D. is Chief of the Cancer Training Branch in the Center for Cancer Training where her role is to oversee the extramural research fellowships, training, and career development programs funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to joining the Center for Cancer Training in 2021, Dr. Zahir served as Associate Director at the NCI Division of Cancer Biology where she coordinated programs that integrate physical sciences perspectives in cancer research, fostered collaborative team science, supported education, outreach, and advocacy activities, and promoted resources for data sharing and biospecimen standards. Dr. Zahir joined the NCI in 2009 as a Program Director in the Office of Physical Sciences-Oncology. She has conducted research in tissue engineering at the NIH, breast cancer mechanobiology at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Bioengineering, and plasma physics and radiation biology at the University of California, Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering.

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