Michele Pearson, NIH/NINDS, Chief of Staff, Office of the BRAIN® Director (OBD). Michele began her NIH career as an Intramural Research Training Award Recipient at the National Institute of Aging, in the Laboratory of Neurosciences. Michele worked at the National Institute of Mental Health, on the extramural side for 10 years as a Program Specialist in the Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science and in the Division of Translational Research, where she was a member of the NIMH Research Training and Career Development Team and the Director of the NIMH Loan Repayment Program. As OBD Chief of Staff, Michele provides organizational, technical, scientific and administrative support in the planning, coordination and communication of the NIH BRAIN® Initiative.What is The BRAIN Initiative®?The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative technologies, researchers will be able to produce a revolutionary new dynamic picture of the brain that, for the first time, shows how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. Long desired by researchers seeking new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, this picture will fill major gaps in our current knowledge and provide unprecedented opportunities for exploring exactly how the brain enables the human body to record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought.