Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
Dr. Raymond H. Jacobson has been appointed director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review (CSR), with his role commencing on June 14, 2026. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., announced the selection, noting Dr. Jacobson’s responsibility for strengthening NIH’s centralized peer review system to support high-quality research. The CSR ensures fair, expert, and timely review of the many grant applications submitted to the NIH annually.
Previously, Dr. Jacobson served as CSR’s acting director after the retirement of Dr. Bruce Reed. He has been instrumental in NIH’s efforts to centralize peer review processes, reduce administrative burdens, and address applicant challenges in his role as Acting Deputy Director of the NIH Office of Extramural Research in 2025. As director of the CSR Division of Receipt and Referral since December 2024, he also led efforts to simplify application policies.
Dr. Jacobson began his NIH career in 2009 as a scientific review officer within the Bioengineering and Sciences Technologies Integrated Review Group. He later became chief of the Biological Chemistry and Macromolecular Biophysics IRG in 2015 and was appointed director of CSR’s Division of Basic and Integrated Biological Sciences in 2020.
He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, Eugene, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received the Miller Institute Fellowship and the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award. Before joining CSR, he was an assistant professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, focusing on the structural and biophysical aspects of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II general transcription machinery.