#FellowFriday: Nina Bernick

Nina Bernick
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

This fall I’m working with NIDA in the Division for Neuroscience and Behavior as a software engineer fellow.

Improving the grant review process.

Together with my mentors Susan Wright and Roger Little, I’ll be working to improve the grant review process by making certain tasks more efficient for program officers. I hope to also build visualization tools to aid in analysis of NIDA grant portfolios. I’m excited to work on this project because I get to learn all the ins and outs of a grant lifecycle and then think critically about how I can improve the experience of the program officer reviewing a grant.

Learning from others’ experiences.

This fall, I hope to get to know many of my colleagues at NIDA and learn from their career experiences, and also get to know the other fellows. It can be difficult to find opportunities in civic tech, so I’m excited to see what’s out there and what writing code for the government is like.