Team: Immediate Office of the Director (IMOD)

Functional Area: All OSC Activities

Programs: All Common Fund Programs

Michelle McKinney joined the Common Fund in the Office of Strategic Coordination as an Executive Assistant to the Director. Before joining our office, Michelle worked as an Executive Assistant at Otsuka Pharmaceutical in Rockville, MD. She supported the Early Development and Translational Medicine Group and the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Group. While there, she partnered with business leaders and their teams to understand business strategy, products, processes, and systems and to support the day-to-day operations of their departments. Michelle earned her B.A. in Public Relations from Simmons University in Boston.

Team: Transformational Science and Discovery (TSD)

Functional Area: Program Management

Programs: Human Virome Program; Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG); NIH Director's Early Independence Award (EIA); NIH Director's New Innovator Award (NIA); NIH Director's Pioneer Award (PA); NIH Director's Transformative Research Award (TRA)

Dr. Becky Miller joined the Office of Strategic Coordination in 2014. She serves as the program officer for the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award and assists in programmatic management and outreach for the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. She did her postdoctoral work at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) studying mosquito transmission of drug-resistant malaria. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame studying genomic variation in malaria parasites and was a GLOBES NSF IGERT fellow. She studied population genetics and phylogeography of mountain whitefish for her M.S. in molecular biology and received a B.S. in zoology, both from Brigham Young University.

Team: Division of Other Transactions Management (DOTM)

Functional Area: Other Transactions

Programs: Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM AHEAD); Generalist Repository Ecosystem initiative (GREi); NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability Program (NCPI); Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADX); Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES)

DJ Milliken joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) within the Division of Other Transactions Management (DOTM) as an Other Transaction Agreement Specialist, Team Lead in May 2023. Prior to joining DOTM, DJ was a founding member of the NHLBI Other Transactions Office. DJ has experience managing a diverse portfolio of NHLBI OT initiatives including BioData Catalyst, CONNECTS, Cure Sickle Cell, and RECOVER. DJ came to the NIH by way of Johns Hopkins University and Children’s National Medical Center where he specialized in managing grants, contracts, and clinical research agreements. In addition to his role at DOTM, DJ currently attends the University of South Carolina where he is pursuing a Master of Public Health degree in Health Services Policy and Management.

Team: Strategic Planning, Evaluation, and Communications (SPEC)

Functional Area: Communication and Outreach; Program Strategic Planning; Science Policy

Programs: All Common Fund Programs

Dr. Katelynn Milora joined the Office of Strategic Coordination as a Health Specialist in February 2022. She transitioned to a permanent employee following her time as a Science & Technology Policy Fellow through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) from August 2020 to February 2022. Prior to her fellowship, Dr. Milora studied immunological responses to neuron-specific measles virus infection in the brain and central nervous system as a postdoctoral fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center from 2017 to 2019. She received her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Temple University School of Medicine in 2017, where she researched the effects of IL-36 cytokine signaling during homeostasis and inflammatory stimuli in epidermal models of autoimmunity and infectious disease.

Team: Re-Engineering the Biomedical Workforce (RRE)

Functional Area: Science Policy

Programs: Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS)

Dr. Toy Lisa Mitchell joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) as a Health Scientist and an AAAS fellow in August 2023. Prior to joining OSC, Toy served as a Behavioral Health Consultant for a Federal Qualified Healthcare Clinic, Licensed Professional Counselor and Clinical Supervisor for a Mental Health Agency. Dr. Mitchell’s work experiences also include working with indigenous rural and urban populations pertaining to aspects of health and mental health. She received her Bachelors of Arts in Mass Communication from Western Kentucky University, Masters of Education in Human Development Counseling from Vanderbilt University, and her doctorate in Communication from the University of Kentucky.

Team: Operations Team

Functional Area: Award Management and Tracking

Programs: All Common Fund Programs

Mr. Michael Morse the Operations Team Leader and a grants management advisor to the Director of the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC). He facilitates the communication of funding decisions from OSC to the grants offices of the administering NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) and provides grants guidance and support to both the OSC and the IC Grants Offices. Mr. Morse earned a bachelor's degree in business management from the University of Maryland. He spent 14 years in the banking industry before joining NIH. In 1990, he went to work for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) as a grants management specialist. He worked there for over a decade before moving to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) as the deputy chief for their grants office. He was involved in training for grants specialists and seminars for the Society of Research Administrators. He left the government for a brief period, and returned to grants management work, this time on the NIH Roadmap, now known as the Common Fund.

Team: Operations Team; Strategic Planning, Evaluation, and Communications (SPEC)

Functional Area: Award Management and Tracking; Communication and Outreach; FOA Processing; Program Evaluation and Analysis

Programs: NIH Director's Early Independence Award (EIA); NIH Director's New Innovator Award (NIA); NIH Director's Pioneer Award (PA); NIH Director's Transformative Research Award (TRA); Transformative High Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy (CryoEM)

Ms. Ellie Murcia received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Goshen College. She received a master’s degree in international education from the University of Massachusetts. Ms. Murcia came to the NIH in 2000 as a program analyst in the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). She began working with the NIH Roadmap since its inception in 2004 and stayed when it transitioned into the Common Fund with the NIH Reauthorization in 2006. Ms. Murcia is a program specialist and serves as the NIH Guide Liaison for the Common Fund and is part of the Operations Team supporting the four programs of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research initiative and the Transformative High Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy program.

Team: Strategic Planning, Evaluation, and Communications (SPEC)

Functional Area: Communication and Outreach; Program Evaluation and Analysis; Program Strategic Planning; Website Content

Programs: Harnessing Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa); Human Virome Program; Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE); Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN)

Ms. Sonynka Ngosso serves as a Scientific Program manager for Common Fund programs related to bionformatics and big data, somatic cell genome editing, social and behavioral sciences, undiagnosed diseases, and data science applications in Africa. She joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) in 2017 as a scientific program analyst for the Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program. Prior to joining the OSC, she served as a scientific program analyst for BD2K in the Office of the Associate Director for Data Science. She obtained her B.S. and M.S. in biology from Towson University, where she studied the visual orientation of gypsy moth larvae to emissive colors to provide a basis for the development of safer biocontrol measures, such as light traps, to control the destructive effects of this pest on crops and vegetation. Ms. Ngosso also holds a M.B.A. in health care management from the University of Baltimore Merrick School of Business.

Team: Transformational Science and Discovery (TSD)

Functional Area: Program Management

Programs: Gabriella Miller Kids First (Kids First); Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa); Medical Education Partnership Initiative (FIC program); Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans (MoTrPAC); Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN)

Dr. Concepcion (Marie) Nierras joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) from JDRF International (previously Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), where she was in charge of international partnerships. She served as program officer for JDRF’s portfolio in genetics, including genetics of susceptibility to type 1 diabetes, and genetics of diabetic nephropathy. As part of the program team representing funders of the International Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, Dr. Nierras had extensive interactions with colleagues at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Nierras received her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and did postdoctoral research at Oxford University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Team: Re-Engineering the Biomedical Workforce (RRE)

Functional Area: Program Management

Programs: Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS)

Julia joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) as a Clinical Trials Specialist in May 2024, where she is part of the Clinical Research Unit supporting the ComPASS program’s Community-Led, Health Equity Structural Interventions (CHESI) initiative. As a Clinical Trials Specialist, Julia provides support to community-based health intervention sites, developing and maintaining research operations and ensuring timely milestone completion. Julia has been with NIH since 2019, starting at the National Cancer Institute as a Communications Fellow. Transitioning to the National Human Genome Research Institute, Julia spent four years developing and implementing social and behavioral research initiatives across the United States and internationally, with a specific focus on community health education and health equity. Julia holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire.

Team: Division of Other Transactions Management (DOTM)

Functional Area: Other Transactions

Programs: Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS)

Ms. Elfreda Nymn joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) joined the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC)-Division of Other Transactions Management (DOTM) as an Other Transactions Agreements Specialist in July 2023. Prior to joining OSC, Ms. Nymn held grants management positions at DOD/USAMRAA, DOC/NIST, & HHS/ACF. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Geography from the University of the Maryland.