Mark Roltsch PhD

Mark Roltsch, Ph.D., received his undergraduate degree from Virginia Military Institute in civil engineering. He worked in the field of construction management for several years responsible for building many of the roads and bridges around Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. He had a change in career direction and spent the next five years as a professional ski and snowboard instructor in Steamboat, Colo., in the winters. In the summers he was a partner in a small construction company in Nantucket, Mass. All good things have to come to an end and he went back to school

He received his M.S. in Kinesiology from James Madison University and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Exercise Physiology. He spent two years at the Howard University Cancer Center as a post-doc investigating the physiological and biochemical mechanism by which regular physical activity interventions lead to reducing the risk of cancer. After finishing his post-doc he accepted a position for a NASA contractor as a Peer Review Administrator in charge of all NASA grant reviews related to humans in space. An opportunity became available for Mark at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and in July 2005 he joined the Office of Scientific Review at NHLBI as a Scientific Review Officer. Over the course of several years he rose to the position of Deputy Chief of the Clinical Trials and Training Branch in the Office of Scientific Review (OSR).