Sally Rockey

Sally Rockey is the Deputy Director for Extramural Research and Director of the Office of Extramural Research (OER) at the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Rockey received her Ph.D. in entomology from Ohio State University.

Rockey's career in research and grants administration began in 1986 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she held a variety of positions prior to appointment as the head of the Competitive Grants Program and finally the department's Chief Information Officer in 2002. She became the Deputy Director of OER in 2005, the Acting Deputy Director for Extramural Research in 2008, and this latter position became permanent in 2010.

She has used this position to advocate for greater transparency in NIH administration, establishing the blog "Rock Talk" as a platform for communicating with the community of biomedical researchers receiving NIH extramural funding and with the general public. Rockey is an advocate of improving diversity among the scientific workforce. Together with the newly appointed NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity Hannah Valantine, Rockey has used her blog to announce diversity initiatives such as 2014 NIH Common Fund awards for improving outreach and career development for underrepresented groups in biomedicine.

Rockey has also published commentary on scientific career development and, with NIH Director Francis Collins, on managing financial conflicts of interest in scientific research.

Rockey was the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award in 2004.