Maryrose Franko, PhD
Executive Director
maryrose [at] healthra [dot] org
Dr. Maryrose Franko is Executive Director of the Health Research Alliance. Working closely with the organization’s board, she sets its strategic priorities, advances its members’ objectives through key programs, and develops tools for the nonprofit biomedical community.
Dr. Franko’s background includes over 20 years of program management at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), including strategic planning as well as creating, implementing, and managing over a dozen programs and initiatives. These include graduate, medical student and postdoctoral research fellowships, and an innovative and groundbreaking joint initiative with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Franko also ran both the graduate and undergraduate programs at HHMI’s state-of-the-art research facility, Janelia Research Campus, and created professional development opportunities for Janelia’s postdocs. Dr. Franko’s collaboration with the Burroughs Wellcome fund to develop a residential Lab Leadership and Management course, led to the creation of Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, and the companion guide, Training Scientists to Make the Right Moves, which were joint efforts of HHMI and Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Dr. Franko received her PhD in molecular genetics from University of Southern California and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before joining HHMI. During her time at HHMI, Franko was a founding board member of HRA, serving from 1995 to 2012. While a member of HRA, she initiated and led the Early Career Scientist Working group which is now the Research Workforce and Early Career Development working group. She serves on many boards, including the Center for Open Science, and Northern Virginia’s new interactive science museum – the Children’s Science Center.