Junius Gonzales Named Advisor to National Institutes of Health Initiative

Montclair State University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Junius Gonzales has been named one of five advisors to the Common Fund of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an initiative that supports bold scientific programs that catalyze discovery across all biomedical and behavioral research.

Specifically, he is on the advisor consultant team for the NIH Common Fund’s Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) program, which aims to enhance and maintain cultures of inclusive excellence in the biomedical research community.

The National Institutes of Health is a preeminent American medical research organization that invests nearly $48 billion annually in research that impacts the American people. Its mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.

Gonzales joins fellow distinguished leaders from institutions including Harvard Medical School, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center as advisors for the Common Fund, which creates a space where investigators and multiple NIH Institutes and Centers collaborate on innovative research.

In the role, he will provide critical scientific and managerial insight which will assist the NIH’s Office of Strategic Coordination staff, the Fund’s Working Group and program awardees for the FIRST program in determining whether work is producing value to the biomedical research community.

“The National Institutes of Health is demonstrating, through its innovative Common Fund approach, its commitment to enhancing diversity in its research investigator work force. It is made loud and clear through its Fiscal Years 2023–2027 NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) and more,” says Gonzales.

Over a distinguished 30-year career, Gonzales has worked as a faculty member, researcher, and senior administrator. His research interests include mental health disparities among the Latinx population, the treatment of depression, and non-cognitive factors that influence college student success. He has received $15 million in research funding from sources that include the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health and the Gates Foundation and published more than 50 scholarly papers and book chapters.

As Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Montclair, he has spearheaded several initiatives to enhance faculty recruitment and success.

“I am honored and humbled to be invited to serve on such a team of consulting advisors for such an important endeavor led by the National Institutes of Health – arguably one of the world’s leaders in supporting health research with $48 billion and more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state,” says Gonzales. “I am proud to have been a recipient of NIH support as well as having worked within the NIH to assist investigators improve the health and well being of people.”

For more information on the Office of the Provost at Montclair State University, visit montclair.edu/provost.