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HHMI Janelia Research Campus is the in-house research institute of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), located at 19700 Helix Drive in Ashburn, Virginia. It is built around one grand challenge, a mechanistic account of how a vertebrate brain produces complex behavior. This guide explains what the campus is, how it is organised, and which routes exist for visiting scientists, postdocs and students, so that a research administrator or applicant can tell Janelia apart from HHMI’s other programs.
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What it is
Janelia is part of HHMI, not a separate funder or a university. HHMI describes the campus as organised around a single grand challenge (which it calls “Bet One”): understanding how a vertebrate brain produces complex behavior. The names people search for, such as “HHMI Janelia”, “Janelia HHMI”, “HHMI Janelia campus” and “Janelia Research Campus HHMI”, all point to this one institution. HHMI’s pages use “Janelia Research Campus” and do not describe any earlier name, so this guide does not either.
The model organisms HHMI names for the work are the fruit fly, larval zebrafish and Danionella. Two outputs HHMI highlights are the 2020 hemibrain connectome of the fruit fly and, in 2025, the first complete connectome of a male fly central nervous system, at roughly 140,000 neurons. HHMI states that success is measured by whether other labs adopt the methods and tools Janelia produces, not by credit for the originating lab.
Who runs it and what it covers
HHMI organises Janelia as four units operating as one enterprise: Biology, AI@HHMI, Tools@HHMI and Theory@HHMI. Each advances the grand challenge and also supports HHMI’s wider research community. A second stated aim, “AI-in-the-Loop” discovery (“Bet Two”), ties the AI and theory work to the biology.
As read on 2026-11-07, HHMI lists Nelson Spruston as Executive Director, Gerald Rubin as Head of Biology, Stephan Saalfeld as head of AI@HHMI, Luke Lavis as head of Tools@HHMI and Ann Hermundstad as head of Theory@HHMI. Leadership changes over time, so check the HHMI page before citing a name.
On its students and postdocs page, Janelia lists 47 labs and 10 project teams (as of 2026-11-07), including CellMap, FlyEM, FlyLight and MouseLight. Project teams are the shared-resource side of the campus: they build tools and datasets for use beyond a single lab, which is why HHMI links Janelia to a “Tools and Data” section.
How to engage with Janelia
Janelia has no single application. Which route applies depends on career stage and purpose. The steps below use only what Janelia’s own pages state.
- Decide the purpose. Short stays by outside researchers go through the Visiting Scientist program; longer training goes through the postdoc or graduate routes.
- For a visit, read the Visiting Scientist page and its linked FAQ. Janelia accepts proposals year-round.
- Contact a potential Janelia host before you submit a proposal. Janelia says this explicitly.
- For general questions, the visitor page names Janelia Scientific Programs and Training as the contact.
- For postdoc and graduate routes, use the Students and Postdocs page, which describes mentoring and career resources and names the Theory Fellow Program and the Scientific Computing Associates Program.
- Follow the link from each route’s own page to reach its application or sign-in step, rather than a third-party listing.
Pathways at a glance
| Route | What Janelia states |
|---|---|
| Visiting Scientist | Hosted more than 1,000 visitors from 30 countries since 2007; mainly biology, chemistry, engineering and physics; graduate, postdoc and senior stages; proposals year-round; contact a host first. |
| Postdoc | Work with scientists at the cutting edge with access to technical facilities; mentoring and career resources. |
| Theory Fellow Program | Named on the Students and Postdocs page. |
| Scientific Computing Associates Program | Named on the Students and Postdocs page. |
| Graduate training | Two graduate training programs run in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. |
Strengths and limits
Strengths. The campus concentrates one scientific question across biology, tools, AI and theory, and it explicitly measures itself by tool adoption. For an administrator, that makes Janelia’s shared tools and datasets a practical thing to cite and reuse. See our guide to the HHMI Investigator program for the broader HHMI context.
Limits. Janelia is an HHMI-run campus with a defined scientific focus. It is not an open grant program: its pages describe visiting, postdoc and graduate routes, not funding for a lab at your own university. They also do not describe a general fellowship called “Janelia Fellows”, so do not assume one. For background on the field the campus works in, see what is neuroscience.
Alternatives
If the goal is HHMI or federal support rather than a place at Janelia, other routes fit better. These are pointers to separate CASRAI guides, not claims about Janelia.
| If you want | See |
|---|---|
| HHMI funding for a lab at another institution | HHMI Investigator program |
| An HHMI graduate fellowship | HHMI Gilliam Fellowship |
| A government in-house research environment | NIH Intramural Research Program |
| Other nonprofit biomedical funders | Private and nonprofit medical research funders |
FAQ
What is HHMI Janelia?
HHMI Janelia, or Janelia Research Campus, is HHMI’s in-house research campus in Ashburn, Virginia, organised around understanding how a vertebrate brain produces complex behavior.
Is Janelia part of a university?
No. Janelia’s pages state that it is part of HHMI. It collaborates with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine on two graduate training programs.
Can outside scientists work at Janelia?
Yes, through the Visiting Scientist program. Proposals are accepted year-round, and you should contact a potential Janelia host first.
How is Janelia different from the HHMI Investigator program?
Janelia is an HHMI campus with its own labs and project teams. The Investigator program is a separate HHMI route covered in our Investigator guide.
Sources
- HHMI, Janelia Research Campus: hhmi.org/research/janelia (read 2026-11-07)
- Janelia, Visiting Scientists: janelia.org/you-janelia/visiting-scientists (read 2026-11-07)
- Janelia, Students and Postdocs: janelia.org/you-janelia/students-postdocs (read 2026-11-07)
