Tributes to Dr. Flora Katz from Fogarty

It has been an absolute honor to work with Flora for these past 7 months. Flora is thoughtful, diplomatic, and always guided by the science. Her dedication, clarity of vision, and ability to express it, as well as her fierce commitment to her critical role at Fogarty, are exemplary. There is no doubt that Flora’s legacy will be enduring, given the many here at Fogarty and around the world who have benefited by her direct mentorship and the impactful programs that she fostered. I will greatly miss Flora.

- Fogarty Director Dr. Kathy Neuzil

There are a few very remarkable things about Flora. One is her ability to manage the complexity of the budget for extramural funding and her masterful administration of both the current commitments and the outyears, working seamlessly with Bruce Butrum. This is the core of how we use our resources to achieve our mission, and I normally would be worried and tempted to try to micromanage this activity, yet I have total confidence that she has all of that in her mind and on paper and has thought it through—she's got all of that complicated administration well in hand. So that's a really important part of what she does… and does really well.

Another thing is she's very democratic in her leadership and very transparent and open with how she manages her group. She really listens and cares about what the program officers want to do and how they want to do it and their individual management styles. It's a very positive quality and contributes to why she’s very effective and able to keep everybody happy and productive and moving forward.

Thirdly, she's well-tuned-into global science and also Fogarty’s expertise in the area of enhancing training and capacity building. She’s been very thoughtful about the career pipeline of individual trainees and the maturity of low- and middle- income country (LMIC) institutions in relation to capacity building. For example, if we have this opportunity, how that's going to fill this gap in terms of moving people from their terminal degrees to their careers… or, what's going to have the most impact on the institutions—having grants management capacity or changing their policies concerning faculty promotion? So, she's very strong in her understanding of that technical expertise on capacity building and partnership.

Lastly, Flora’s just a delightful person to work with. We have biweekly, hour-long one-on-one meetings. Before COVID-19 we would occasionally have walking meetings around the NIH campus. Lately, we often have virtual walking meetings, each in our own neighborhood, talking through every issue including personnel issues, hiring, staff development, budget, program evaluation, new program development, policy, travel, communications, etc., etc. Since I came to Fogarty and NIH nine-and-a-half years ago, she’s taught me most of what I know about NIH extramural funding, and she has graciously used me as a sounding board to talk and think through the thorniest issues she is working on. Flora’s contributions to Fogarty, the broader NIH community, and our global network of partners have been exceptional. She will be greatly missed, especially by me!

- Fogarty Deputy Director Dr. Peter Kilmarx

Flora has made amazing contributions to Fogarty over her nearly 25 year career. Flora is an exceptionally talented individual. She is dedicated to making a contribution to science and to advancing global health. Beginning as a fellow, progressing to a program officer, and ultimately to the DITR Director she has served as a mentor and role model to many Fogarty staff both within and outside the Division. As a program officer she was responsible for some of the most complex and impactful Fogarty programs including Biodiversity, MEPI Jr. and AFREHealth which are transforming medical research and training in Africa.

Flora, it has been a privilege to know you and to be your friend over these many years. I wish you the very best on your well-deserved retirement.

- Fogarty Senior Scientist Advisor (retired) Dr. Ken Bridbord

In 2012, I interviewed with Flora for an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellowship position in DITR, despite not having previous global health experience. Flora’s passion for global health and gift for storytelling convinced me that Fogarty was the perfect place for me to use my engineering background. I’m incredibly grateful to Flora for sparking my interest and aiding in the development of my career that now spans over a decade at Fogarty. Flora is an supportive mentor, scientific visionary, and thoughtful leader - her positive impact on DITR and global health will continue well beyond her retirement.

- Fogarty Program Officer Laura Povlich, PhD

Flora – you have been such an incredible boss, partner, colleague, and mentor! You have built each one of us in a gentle and encouraging way. You will be incredibly missed! Enjoy the adventures that will come your way!

- Fogarty Program Officer Marya Levintova, PhD

One of my best placements at Fogarty was moving Flora Katz to be Division Director of DITR. Dr. Ken Bridbord had done an excellent job for years and Flora wasnt certain she really wanted the position. Once in place, she was totally awesome! Flora had great ideas that she dreamed up, she is problem solver and always kept me in line. I appreciated her willingness to not only help me when we were developing some great plans -- she always had more experience in getting things done, but also did not let me get by with some crazy idea. She would speak to me directly and if she didnt agree, she would let me know and was always right! Great judgement.

Flora has been universally helpful to both grantees and staff. She has led the division through an exceptional period of expansion of all sorts of programs, not only the little ones from FIC but the big global initiatives like MEPI and DS-I Africa and others. Flora also was an avid recruiter of great people. She attracted Laura Povlich as a AAAS fellow and Laura has been amazing! What would Fogarty do with an Engineer? Laura began our mHealth program, was a lead on DS-I Africa and was an incredible addition to FIC and DITR using all her engineering skills. UnJA and Brad, followed suit so she kept her team well great additions. She was also a great negotiator and by the time I left, fully half of our fellows were funded by other institutes and 88% of our grants had co-funding....so she stretched our dollars through productive and opportunistic collaborations.

And Flora was fun! A great sense of humor, a willingness to say "no" to power nicely and if Flora said no, I listened and usually had to agree. She kept me out of trouble!

It was my pleasure to work side by side with Flora during my 17 years at Fogarty and she has helped so many people.

- Former Fogarty Director Dr. Roger Glass