Chair Professor in Neuroscience

Description

Yale School of Medicine seeks an accomplished, collaborative, and visionary scientist-leader to lead the Department of Neuroscience. Situated within one of the premier academic medical schools in the country, the Department of Neuroscience boasts some of the world’s leaders in the fundamental biology of the nervous system, including neuronal cell biology, nervous system development, cognition, learning and memory, genomics and gene discovery, neurodegeneration, neuropsychiatric disorders, and much more. The chair will build upon this foundation to enact a vision that will expand the department via recruitment of scientific leaders in new areas and build new collaborations to nucleate the vast neuroscience community at Yale. This individual will also serve as the primary representative and advocate for the department and provide thought leadership to the field of neuroscience at Yale, nationally, and internationally.

One of ten basic science departments at YSM, the Department of Neuroscience is home to 23 world class primary faculty, including a dynamic cadre of assistant professors who joined the department in the last five years. The department also encompasses 21 staff, 37 graduate students, 64 postdoctoral fellows and associate research scientists. The department has concentrated strength in development, disease, plasticity, and repair of the nervous system, and in bridging basic research to translational medicine. Currently, the department holds 55 extramural grants totaling nearly $24.8 million annually, including 34 NIH grants totaling nearly $22.6 million. Beyond the scientific eminence of the department, the department has a decades-long experience serving as a vital crucible for scientific collaboration and collegiality, befitting the ethos of catalytic cross-disciplinary interaction that is a hallmark of YSM. Reflecting this, eight of the primary faculty hold a dual primary appointment in another department at YSM, and the department also hosts multiple joint appointees from collaborating departments across the University.

The Chair of Neuroscience will provide broad leadership and oversight of the department’s research initiatives, facilities, and programs. The chair will lead and develop the department in alignment with YSM’s strategic priorities and build on the historic strengths of the department, while simultaneously implementing a new vision for the future of neuroscience at Yale. Yale is making significant investments in neuroscience, which it has named as one of five university-wide priorities.  As part of this vision, the Department of Neuroscience will be a central driver for the integration of the broader neuroscience community, working collaboratively with other YSM basic science and clinical departments, and departments across campus, to foster a strong, interconnected neuroscience community. The Chair will also serve as co-director of the steering committee for the newly established Wu Tsai Institute, focusing on interdisciplinary studies to understand human cognition, and playing a vital role in shaping the direction of the Institute and interaction with YSM.  In this role, the chair will have strong support from the Dean and senior leadership of YSM to ensure success of the department as a highly dynamic and forward-thinking unit. This recruitment is essential to the continued growth and success of YSM and to uniquely position the Department of Neuroscience to address the grand challenges in the field.  The Chair will be seen as a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion in all areas of the Department, and the institution, and their success will be measured in part by success in recruiting, developing, and promoting a diverse faculty.

Qualifications

The successful candidate will be a highly respected and skilled scientist with a distinguished record of leadership, mentorship, research, and publications; a demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the required qualifications for appointment as a full professor at Yale School of Medicine. To read the full position profile and to submit inquiries or nominations/referrals, visit Isaacson, Miller’s website at www.imsearch.com/7995.

Application Instructions

We are delighted with your interest in the position of Chair of Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine.  To proceed further, we ask that you to submit a personal statement that describes your experience and explains how your expertise and leadership would serve the needs of the department and advance the neuroscience community at Yale. 

The best statements respond directly to the position profile and highlight the experiences that have prepared you to lead the Department of Neuroscience in the years ahead. Please review the "Key Opportunities and Challenges" section, which you will find in the middle of the profile, and describe your track record as it relates to these points. Be sure to include information about your experience and leadership in scientific communities outside of your own lab and department. The committee members would appreciate having examples that illustrate your accomplishments. If there are explicit metrics, those are always useful. Please use any evidence available that demonstrates your skill set so that the Committee can best understand what you would bring to Yale. The Committee will be interested to know how your own science intersects with other disciplines and how you engaged with the broader neuroscience community and peers at your current institution. They would be particularly interested in instances when you have been able to bring together researchers who work at very different levels of neuroscience.

These need not be long letters; two to three pages should be enough to provide the Committee with a good sense of your leadership and appropriate evidence of your accomplishments.

Confidential review of nominations and expressions of interest will begin immediately and will continue until an appointment is made. To be ensured full consideration, interested parties should submit a curriculum vitae and supporting materials for the Search Committee’s review to https://apply.interfolio.com/86598.

In your application, please refer to Professorpositions.com