Dr. Jackie Ward is the Senior Advisor for the Helping End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative in the Office of Pain Policy & Planning. Previously, Jackie spent several years on detail to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) where she served in several different capacities, finishing her tenure there as OSTP’s Assistant Director for Neuroscience & Brain Health. She led the development of the first ever “White House Report on Mental Health Research Priorities” and supported President Biden’s efforts to address the mental health and substance use crises. Previously she was the Chief of Staff at NINDS, providing support to the NINDS Director on a wide variety of projects and managing special projects – including the development of the NIH RECOVER Initiative to understand, treat, and prevent long COVID. She came to NINDS originally in 2017 as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow and prior to that had been a postdoctoral fellow and graduate student at the University of California, San Diego. Her doctoral research focused on mitochondrial and metabolic defects in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 7. She has a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.