Beyond the bench: Lyric Jorgensen’s path from neuroscientist to director of science policy at NIH

Can you provide a quick overview of your job and what your professional journey to get there looked like?

I am both the director of science policy and the associate director of science policy at NIH, which I have been since 2023. In one role, I oversee the work of 60 policy staff at NIH and serve the U.S. government. The other role consists of advising on high-priority policy issues important to NIH leadership. In that capacity, I report directly to Jay Battachayra, the director of the NIH, and advise him on policy issues that affect NIH’s portfolio as well as issues facing biomedical research at large.

I started my career as a neuroscientist working with physicians, particularly pediatricians and neonatologists researching conditions of pregnant women that affect fetal brain development. When I started presenting my research at conferences focused on physicians, I realized there weren’t nimble mechanisms for informing them about the current state of research. Because they are actually in clinics seeing patients, they have a lot to do, so they don’t have time to read all these scientific articles. Clinicians needed more digestible ways to understand the current science, and that got me interested in how scientific research can help people make better-informed choices.

Following my graduate studies, I did a postdoc translating basic science to patients to get experience on both ends of the research spectrum. With this understanding, I applied to be a AAAS Science and Policy Fellow to use research to inform policy. When I got the fellowship, I came to DC and started working at NIH. At that time, there was a presidential transition, so I got to be involved in a lot of interesting projects to aid with that transition at NIH. I was fortunate to learn from many talented people early in my career, and was exposed to managing organizational changes by working on NIH’s Scientific Management Review Boar, and creating new initiatives like the new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative. I also learned that policy is not just a set of rules, but a set of tools that are uniquely applied based on what goal you are trying to achieve. Afterward, I ended up working for the Cancer Moonshot Initiative for a while at the White House. Then I came back to NIH to work as the deputy director of science policy and was later promoted to director.

Was this the type of role you were aiming for when you started in science policy?

I had little understanding of what careers in science policy looked like. I was really just thinking about how to turn the knowledge we gain from science into information that helps clinicians and patients make medical decisions. What I specialize in now is how policy can drive responsible science. So I think about how to structure policies to guide science and make sure that we’re getting the best results for the taxpayers that fund us, and the most rigorous results to advance science in ethical, responsible ways.

I am incredibly lucky to have this role. I work with teams that are experts in the issues and conduct robust analyses. Most of my days are filled with meetings with these teams to walk through the data and find out the direction they think we need to be going in. There is a lot of back and forth, brainstorming and stress testing arguments. The other part of my day consists of taking the data, analyses, and recommendations to NIH leadership and other agencies which is an iterative process. But the day always depends on what we’re working on and how the administration wants to move on a potential issue.

What have you found most surprising or challenging about working in policy?

What surprised me most is actually also what I found most challenging, and what I love the most. It’s the process. It’s a bit like the scientific process actually. For instance, our data management sharing policy at NIH—it was the first one in the federal government to say all data, regardless of being published, needs to be shared—so, a very seminal policy. It took probably seven-ish years to get done, which sounds crazy, but it’s not because anyone was being slow. Policy is subject to congressional interest, public interest, and more, and it is not likely to be as sustainable if it’s not built iteratively. So for the data management sharing policy, which really required a big culture change, we developed a draft, then we engaged stakeholders and worked through challenges, then we put it out for comment. We gave them three months to comment, then we reviewed the comments, and put out a revised draft building on those comments. So those processes take a very, very long time, but it’s not because people are not actively working intensely on it. We are doing this now with our biosafety modernization policy. We just put out a draft policy maybe two weeks ago. But we spent the last year doing stakeholder meetings, engaging the public, having open comment periods, and trying to get information and iterate along the way. And then, once we put out a policy, we need to give time for people to set up the machinery to comply with that policy. So that’s another year. What looks like a very slow and laboring process, is actually very beautiful because we are trying to make something that makes meaningful change.

What kind of skills do you feel are most important for science policy work and how do you develop them?

I would say for this job in particular, being a scientist has been helpful, not necessarily for the language of science, but the process of science. Step one is identifying problems, and as scientists, we do that a lot. When you are at that bench, you’re thinking, “What is the gap? What information is needed? How do I design something to obtain that information?” You run the experiment, you test your hypothesis, you generate the data, you analyze it, and then you communicate it. That thinking and that process is very germane to what we do in policy here. We’re looking at the gaps in the current policy infrastructure and what we need to fill them. We collect a lot of information, synthesize it, and then try to create some rubric of analysis to then implement a policy. Then we communicate to the world what that policy is. So I would say the skills that you get as a scientist are extremely helpful. The other important skill is the ability to really listen openly to conversation. When working at a federal government agency, you work for the taxpayer, so that’s different from doing policy in an advocacy organization where you’re working for a position. The position that I work for is what the American public wants and what American leadership wants. So I work on how to best align policy to that. It’s important to have an open mind when thinking about the goal that we’re trying to achieve and how we can get all the information to do it.

What advice do you have for someone looking to get a policy job or fellowship?

When I was a researcher, science policy was not as well known. It was very much just the AAAS fellowship program. It is different now and folks can get involved with science policy in many ways. I loved the fellowship for somebody like me who was very new to the field. It gave me broad exposure and a good network of people. Your network is really important. I rely on a lot of people across the government, across societies, and academic institutions. We build a lot of trust to be able to work together and be effective. Roles shift and power dynamics shift, especially in politics, so building honest and bidirectional engagements is really important.

Advocacy organizations, scientific societies, and universities are all involved in science policy, so there are many policy jobs and places to intern, even as a bench scientist. I started doing governance groups at my institution when I was a postdoc. Policy is very multifaceted, and there’s just an endless need for analytical, thoughtful folks to deploy those skill sets. In my office, we have people who are policy generalists who think about the best policy approach for a problem. Then there are people who are the smartest people in the world on a specific policy, like human subjects. They can cite verbatim what each section of a policy says. So if you’re interviewing for a policy job that wants you to be the smartest person on a topic, then being the smartest person on that topic is very important. For me, since the nature of the policy work we do can change so much, we’re really looking for people who are intellectually curious and able to deal with change and pivot, people who can spot challenges and poke holes in arguments, and then develop a path forward from that. There’s some level of willingness to figure out how to decide what the next steps are. I think a lot of times as scientists, you are trained to want to know 99.5% of the answers. You will not walk into a policy office being able to do that, but you can walk in saying, “I have the skill sets to be able to figure it out, find the resources to figure it out, and provide the analysis to do so.” So, have that confidence, whatever interview you go into.

Careers, NIH, Policy and Advocacy

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