Program Director, Manager, or Specialist

Are you an ambitious scientist hoping to make a high-impact job change? Do you have innovative ideas to accelerate neuroscience research discoveries? The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) seeks bright, creative, visionary scientists, engineers, and physicians with a broad knowledge of neuroscience to conceive and develop large-scale funding initiatives, organize workshops, and interact with leading neuroscientists throughout the world. Successful candidates will join a highly interactive group of public servants applying their basic, translational, and clinical experience and expertise in all areas of neuroscience.

The NINDS Division of Neuroscience plans and directs a program of extramural grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts in basic discovery and disease research in neuroscience, guiding NINDS’s largest research portfolio and charting the future of a vibrant, growing neuroscience research community. Our current career opportunities are listed below.

Program Director (10 positions): These Health Scientist Administrators direct research programs and perform a wide variety of activities related to overseeing large grants programs, including program planning and development, program management, solicitation, and evaluation. Experience overseeing an independent research program or grant portfolio is highly recommended.

• Basic Neuroscience
• Brain tumors & blood-brain barrier
• Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
• Neural circuits
• Neuroinfectious diseases
• Neurotechnology
• Pain
• Parkinson’s disease
• Systems & computational neuroscience
• Vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID)

Scientific Program Manager (1 position): This Health Scientist Administrator oversees the NeuroBioBank’s support of scientific programs that utilize its brain and tissue repositories, coordinates the development of data management systems, leads data harmonization, conducts analyses to optimize processes, and collaborates on outreach efforts. Experience managing highly complex and cross-cutting projects is recommended.

• Brain tissue repository (NeuroBioBank)

Health Program Specialist (7 positions): These individuals support, plan, coordinate, and screen proposed research projects relevant to various subject-matter areas (summarized below); assist with the design and detailed analysis of scientific and/or administrative factors affecting research program priorities and performance; evaluate grants programs; and provide guidance to grantees on research objectives, requirements, and compliance.   Experience leading or working on multiple projects, teams and/or timelines is recommended.

• Office of the Associate Director – open science, data standards, and data management
• Neural Environment Cluster – neuroimmunology, neurovirology, neural vascular biology, the blood brain barrier, stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, neuro-AIDS and neuroinfectious diseases, prion diseases, and CNS infections.
• Neurodegeneration Cluster – neuronal cell death, protein misfolding, aggregation, processing, mitochondrial pathologies, epidemiological studies, genetic studies, biomarker studies that facilitate understanding of and therapy development for neurodegeneration and neurodegenerative diseases, and Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) programs.
• Neurogenetics Cluster – genetics and genomics of normal neural development and neurological diseases; rare neurological, neurodevelopmental, metabolic, and neuromuscular disorders; gene expression, proteomics, and metabolomics; gene therapy and gene delivery; molecular basis of neurodevelopment; glia biology; and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network.
• Neurotechnology & Integrated Systems Cluster (2 positions) – BRAIN Initiative, development and dissemination of technologies for mapping brain circuits, monitoring and manipulating their activity, and understanding their contributions to complex behaviors.
• Repair & Plasticity Cluster – spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and associated research on the recovery of function; plasticity of the nervous system; neural circuits that underlie specific behaviors; repair of the nervous system in injury and disease; stem cell biology; neural prosthesis, neural engineering, and other means of repairing the nervous system due to injury or disease.

For more information: 

Visit: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/about-ninds/job-opportunities/careers/careers-ninds

Contact: Dr. Ling M. Wong, Chief of Staff (ling.wong@nih.gov)

The United States Government does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.

NINDS is committed to workplace flexibility and offers a variety of schedule and duty station options