In addition to his role as BRI’s Director of the Immunology Research Program for the past 13 years, Steve Ziegler, PhD, assumed the new position of director of Academic Affairs at BRI, as of Jan. 1. In this role, he will oversee faculty recruitment and development and serve as chair of the faculty appointment and promotion committee. Dr. Ziegler will also develop and expand external academic relationships, including BRI’s local affiliations with the University of Washington, Fred Hutch and Center for Infectious Disease Research as well as institutions around the country such as La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology.

What is the importance of BRI's academic ties?

We have numerous collaborations with local scientific institutes including Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Fred Hutch and the University of Washington as well as nationally and internationally, such as University of California, San Francisco, Stanford, Northwestern, Kings College London and University of Salzburg. These allow us to bring diverse expertise from many different people to work on complex problems. BRI has core laboratories, biorepositories with human samples, and experience with very large data sets that gives us the ability to work successfully with our collaborators and achieve more in unison.  

What's it like to be a scientist at BRI?

The people who work at BRI like to collaborate and are willing to take risks. They need to be confident, innovative and creative. Our goal is to support and retain our high quality researchers in doing the highest quality science to understand and improve human health. We all work together to support and build our scientific infrastructure so we have the tools we need to be successful. We educate and learn from one another and we are proud to speak at and lead scientific conferences all over the world.

How does BRI help educate scientists?

It’s an important part of our mission to educate and mentor the next generation of scientists and to encourage young people to enter this field. We provide undergraduate internships, mentor graduate students and engage postdoctoral trainees from all over the world. We enjoy the opportunity to train and mentor new people. We also learn and benefit from having their ideas, dedication and energy. One never knows where the next great idea is going to come from.