As a strategy of the Research Roadmap, Carolina is hiring up to four researchers to build a new cross-disciplinary team that expands the University’s capacity to develop resources for our communities.
UNC-Chapel Hill is searching for the first cohort of the new Catalyst Faculty Research Cluster Program, which aims to advance impactful interdisciplinary research through the strategic recruitment and retention of scholars. This is the first university-wide cluster hire program led by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. The research focus of the 2025 cluster hire is substance use disorder (SUD), a growing public health crisis for our nation and state that requires swift and effective treatments. In 2022, nearly 12 North Carolinians died from a drug overdose each day, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, which is actively working to tackle the health crisis.
Hiring a group of researchers with complementary expertise in behavioral science, clinical research, and neuroengineering will create a cutting-edge approach to understanding and treating SUD. This collaboration among the UNC School of Medicine, Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Eshelman School of Pharmacy will streamline the process of moving successful preclinical research into patient settings and community-based programs, helping more people recover from SUD. Faculty will be further supported by the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, UNC Neuroscience Center, and School for Data Science & Society.
Following the Roadmap
The Catalyst Faculty Cluster Program is part of the implementation of the Research Roadmap and aligns with the priorities of the broader University. Cluster hiring provides the opportunity to attract exceptional early-career faculty whose scholarship will have transformational impact across our research enterprise. This program provides funding and a streamlined process for recruitment, retention, and career progression.
“By fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among brilliant minds, the Catalyst Faculty Research Cluster Program will yield groundbreaking discoveries that improve human well-being,” says Vice Chancellor for Research Penny Gordon-Larsen. “This initiative aligns with our commitments to growing our excellence and positioning Carolina as a global leader in neuroscience and innovations to combat SUD.”
The program will provide tailored onboarding, professional training, mentoring, networking experiences, research development, and translation opportunities to ensure the success of the cohort. Eshelman Innovation will provide seed grants along with the infrastructure and expertise to accelerate translation of research into drug candidates, technologies, industry partnerships, and startups that will impact patient health.
Focusing the mission
Following the announcement of the 2025 Catalyst Program’s focus on brain, behavior, and well-being, units across campus submitted proposals that aligned with this theme. Because the demand for effective and precision-based SUD treatments has never been greater, Carolina will pursue research that builds on strengths in public health, computational medicine, and neuromodulation to address this crisis.
From 2000-2022, more than 37,000 people in North Carolina died due to drug overdose. In 2022, for every one drug overdose death, there were four emergency department visits. SUD is damaging communities and devastating families, while overwhelming medical providers and treatment efforts. This is driven by an absence of accessible precision-based approaches to treat SUD, due in part to the lack of translation of preclinical work into the clinic and the inefficiency of moving successful approaches to the community. Carolina’s SUD cluster hire will put research into action to save more lives.
“We will directly address these gaps by catalyzing new bonds across multiple schools on campus, leveraging investments in computational pharmacotherapy and neuromodulation to enhance discovery and translation,” says Thomas Kash, director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies and John R. Andrews Distinguished Professor in the School of Medicine. “We will effectively link meaningful research across all models, guiding discoveries from the bench to the bedside to the clinic to the community.”
Growing the team
This cross-disciplinary team focused on addiction research will be bolstered by the addition of assistant professors in the following areas:
- Health behavior
- With expertise in implementation science, interventions, and community-engaged scholarship, this team member will help translate discoveries into community-based programs and inform evidence-based policies at the local, state, and national level.
- Psychiatry
- This clinician-scientist will develop and maintain a clinical research program related to alcohol and substance abuse that bridges basic science and clinical addiction medicine, leading to innovative approaches in the care of patients with SUD.
- Biomedical engineering & neurosurgery
- With interests in data collection from the brain, analysis of neurological data, and approaches to modulate brain function, this team member will work to analyze SUD and other neurological conditions and pathologies.
- Pharmacy & data science and society
- With expertise in biomolecular data science, drug discovery, and machine learning, this team member will help record, curate, and procure multi-scale data to identify and develop new pharmacotherapies for SUD.
Those interested in applying for a position should do so by December 15, 2024, for priority consideration.