“Mr. Strait brings a multitude of broadcasting, strategic communications and administrative experiences to the NCMHD that will serve the center and the NIH well,” said NCMHD director Dr. John Ruffin.

Strait has an extensive and diverse career in communications. He has served as associate vice chancellor for public affairs at the University of California, Berkeley, where he oversaw university communications, media relations, government affairs, Cal parents and visitor services. Before joining UC Berkeley, Strait chaired the board at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation for improving the lives of the disadvantaged. At the Dr. Spock Co., an Internet resource for parenting and childcare, he served as vice president of content and media.

Most of Strait’s career has been spent in broadcast news. For 22 years he was a correspondent at ABC News where he covered various beats, from the White House to the peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa. In 1983, he became the first medical and health reporter in network television news history. In January 1993, Strait was named correspondent in charge of directing ABC’s coverage of the national health care reform debate. He was ABC’s chief medical correspondent until he left the network in 1999.

“In many ways I feel my entire career has led me to this post,” Strait said. “Dr. Ruffin and I agree that for the NCMHD to fulfill its mission, communications must be an integral part of every aspect of the center’s research and outreach operations.”

Strait also taught science reporting and broadcast journalism at Columbia, Rutgers and Wesleyan universities. In 1975, he helped found the National Association of Black Journalists. Strait co-anchored, wrote and produced the critically acclaimed “Black in White America,” a documentary on race. In addition, he investigated the syphilis experiments on African-American men in Tuskegee, Ala., producing “The Deadly Deception,” which aired on the PBS broadcast NOVA. His achievements have earned him a number of honors in journalism, including the Overseas Press Club’s Edward R. Murrow Award for a 10-part series on health care in the Soviet Union; and two Alfred I. DuPont Awards—one for a ground-breaking series on women’s health and another for the first look at HIV among African Americans.

A native of Boston, Strait graduated from Boston University with a B.A. degree in biology and completed an M.S. program in biochemical genetics at Atlanta University. He is married and has two sons.

New responsibilities came as did Xerox machines and other welcome innovations, such as Wite-Out. David soon became a grants technical assistant (GTA) and worked one-on-one with a series of scientists who coordinated different application review groups. Dr. Mike Radtke was one of them and remembers her as “a stickler for NIH policy who kept me out of trouble.” He explained that “back then, the better GTA you had the better you were, and many of us would request study section assignments based on who the GTA was.”

David eventually rose in the ranks of GTAs to become a lead trainer, helping staff learn to use the early computers, such as the Displaywriters, which were called “toasters” because of the 8-inch disks they used. She then became an IRG lead, assisting staff with computer-related duties while helping a chief of one of CSR’s integrated review groups. Later, David became a review technology assistant, working with others to develop documentation, train professional and support staff and troubleshoot. She explains that she tackled each new task “like a dog with a bone...if I didn’t have the answer I dug until I got one.”

At her retirement party, a number of people thanked David for helping them. One former coworker told her how much it meant to his career that she had helped him learn to type. “I had forgotten all about that,” she says. “You do things automatically and don’t realize how they affect people. There are so many people I wanted to thank, but some are no longer around…

“Don’t wait,” she advises. “Let someone know when they do something special.”

F. Gray Handley joins NIAID as associate director for international research affairs and acting director, Office of Global Research. He will coordinate and facilitate international research activities for NIAID, assuring the institute has a well integrated, scientifically productive program of international research cooperation. Handley will give special attention to research opportunities and the strengthening of research capacity in resource-poor countries. He joins NIAID after having served since 2002 as the U.S. Embassy health attaché and HHS Southern Africa regional representative in Pretoria, South Africa. Prior to that, his career has included many global health and biomedical research management positions, including serving as associate director for prevention research and international programs at NICHD; U.S. science attaché and HHS South Asian representative in New Delhi, India; associate director for international relations at FIC; and public health advisor for the U.S. Department of State. Handley received his M.S.P.H. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.