NIH Remembers Alexander
Colleagues mourn the passing of James Selby Alexander, who died on Oct. 7 surrounded by his three children. He was 88.
Alexander was NIH’s first Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) officer at the Clinical Center. He served NIH for more than 30 years in this role and other appointments, conducting targeted outreach to increase the applicant pool of diverse scientists at NIH. He also founded the NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE).
Alexander was appointed NIH EEO officer in 1974, ten years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion and sex. At a time when most research training programs were lacking in minority participation, Alexander advocated for NIH to integrate diversity and inclusion into the NIH mission. This was a time when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, becoming the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball (MLB). Frank Robinson would become the first Black manager in MLB. In contrast, the Boston Public School system would be found guilty of unconstitutional segregation.
During his tenure, Alexander established the model for himself and others to travel to many Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving as well as mainstream institutions to recruit talented trainees, fellows and employees to work at NIH. He worked to make NIH mission-critical occupations filled with a more reflective view of the nation’s diverse population.
Alexander would later pioneer and lead the vision and charge to establish OITE. His academic background in education and training inspired him and other colleagues to lead a separate office to address the training and education for aspiring biomedical researchers.
“Jim Alexander was a founding leader of the Office of Intramural Training and Education. As a proponent of the importance of taking good care of the trainees at the NIH and a much beloved mentor, teacher and adviser to a generation of early career-scientists, he has left a legacy that has positively influenced the lives of many budding scientists,” said Dr. Michael Gottesman, former deputy director for intramural research at NIH.
“Mr. Alexander is widely recognized for his work and contributions to help build a pipeline to enlarge the pool of minorities in health-related research and stimulate interest in clinical and basic research training opportunities at and supported by NIH that will help close the health disparity gap,” said Levon Parker, former minority and special concerns program officer at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke who had founded NIH’s Summer Internship Program at OITE.
“Several students recruited and mentored by Jim trained for careers in biomedical research or academic medicine at prestigious academic institutions. He made a difference,” noted Parker.
“Jim Alexander was a gentle giant who believed in excellence,” said Dr. David Graham, a former NIH fellow and trainee. “He [helped] recruit minority students to perform NIH research and the end result was that you would see these talented students in the laboratories.”