Nichole Bouffard joined the Allen Institute in 2026 and serves as a Scientific Project and Alliance Manager supporting the Brain Health Accelerator. The Brain Health Accelerator aims to understand the drivers of brain disease at the level of cells and the circuits they form — with the goal of identifying the precise cell types and circuits affected by conditions like Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, and Huntington's disease, and accelerating the development of targeted genetic therapies. In this role, Nichole coordinates across multi-disciplinary teams and external partners to advance this open-science mission.

Before joining the Allen Institute, Nichole trained as a cognitive neuroscientist focused on the neural mechanisms of human memory. She developed a novel fMRI neuroimaging technique to study signal gradients in the hippocampus, later extending this work to research on healthy aging as a T32 postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. She also led a cross-disciplinary collaboration with neurologists at Toronto Western Hospital, applying her imaging method to clinical data from patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Nichole earned her doctorate in Psychology from the University of Toronto and her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of California, Davis.