Bernal Named Executive Officer of NINR

Diane Bernal has recently joined the National Institute of Nursing Research as executive officer. She is a key administrative advisor to the NINR director, identifying opportunities to improve business and management systems. She also advises on research grant and contract implementation plans, program planning and evaluation, policy analysis, financial management, technology transfer, information systems, human resource management, acquisitions and space development.

Diane Bernal Prior to her appointment to NINR, Bernal served as director of intramural management for the National Eye Institute and as a senior adviser to NEI's scientific director. She has extensive leadership experience in cross-cutting research support programs and in the development of two state-of-the-art research support facilities — the Silvio Conte Neuroscience Bldg. 49 and Bldg. 10A. Bernal has a master's degree in organizational development from the College of Notre Dame and advanced training certificates from Harvard School of Public Health, George Washington University School of Business and Public Management and the NIH Management Cadre Program.

She has served as a loaned executive to HHS to organize the Combined Federal Campaign for the Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation and Department of Justice. She has received both HHS and NIH Director's awards for leadership and innovative management and most recently the Professional Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Association for Federal Workers.

Lyster Joins NIGMS as Program Director

Dr. Peter Lyster is joining NIGMS as program director in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. His experience is in bioinformatics and computational biology, including image reconstruction and analysis, data mining, modeling and data integration. He was formerly a program director at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, where he developed initiatives for computational bioengineering and informatics. At NIGMS, he will manage grants in biological modeling and bioinformatics and play a leading part in implementing NIGMS's participation in the bioinformatics and computational biology roadmap. Prior to joining NIH, Lyster worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where he laid the groundwork for the Federal High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) initiative. He then became principal investigator in the HPCC program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at the University of Maryland; he led the effort to use massive computing power to improve data collection for weather and climate models. Lyster conducted postdoctoral research in applied physics at the Institute for Fusion Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. in applied physics and M.S. in numerical analysis from Cornell University and received his undergraduate degrees with honors in electrical engineering and theoretical physics from the University of Adelaide.