Rhode Island’s Dr. Ashish Jha named White House COVID czar

President Biden appoints Dr. Ashish K. Jha to White House role to lead nation’s COVID-19 response

(Brown University) – The dean of Brown’s School of Public Health, a globally recognized expert on pandemic preparedness and response, will take leave for a temporary assignment to serve in the critical federal government role.

At the request of U.S. President Joe Biden, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, will serve as the next White House coronavirus response coordinator. In succeeding Jeffrey Zients, Jha will lead the response of the entire U.S. government to the COVID-19 pandemic, while also advancing the nation’s global health priorities and policies.

To assume the critical role in the nation’s pandemic response and advise Biden, Jha will take a short-term leave from the School of Public Health for the temporary special assignment. The appointment begins April 5, 2022.

Biden issued a statement on Thursday, March 17, announcing Zients’ departure and Jha’s appointment.

“Dr. Jha is one of the leading public health experts in America, and a well-known figure to many Americans from his wise and calming public presence,” Biden said. “And as we enter a new moment in the pandemic — executing on my National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan and managing the ongoing risks from COVID — Dr. Jha is the perfect person for the job.”

Brown University President Christina H. Paxson said Jha’s appointment brings a top scholar and highly regarded Brown academic leader to White House service, offering a prominent illustration of the ways in which the University can make a positive impact on domestic and global issues of significant consequence.

“Ashish will bring to President Biden and our nation what he has brought — and will bring back — to Brown: an unrivaled commitment to improving public health equitably, effectively, creatively, with heart and a commitment to science,” Paxson said. “The work he has begun at the School of Public Health will continue, with the strong team he has recruited and the full support of the University. And it will advance even further with the benefit of this experience in national and global leadership.”

In addition to his role as dean and public health scholar, Jha is a practicing physician with deep expertise in infectious diseases. He was appointed to lead the School of Public Health in February 2020, weeks before COVID-19 arrived in full force in the U.S., and he began as dean in September 2020.

He is a globally recognized expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as on health policy research and practice. Over the past year, Jha has participated in Congressional hearings on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. Recently, he advised the White House on the President’s national COVID-19 preparedness plan.

Jha expressed enthusiasm about how he will build upon his work at Brown in role at the White House.

“Throughout this pandemic, we have worked at Brown to improve public understanding and information, and inform policy at every level of government here and around the globe,” Jha said. “I am honored to accept President Biden’s invitation to serve and continue that work. I do so confident that the work of the Brown School of Public Health will advance around critical issues including pandemic preparedness and key initiatives we have launched and are growing, to improve understanding and policy in key public health issues, and train the next generation of public health leaders.”

Building on momentum with a strong team

Since his start as dean, Jha has worked to strengthen and grow a public health school deeply engaged with solving the world’s most challenging health problems. Under his leadership, the school has launched a new fully online master of public health degree program and academic initiatives focused on long COVID, pandemic preparedness and health misinformation. The school created a Health Equity Scholars program to expand diversity among public health leaders, increased the number of tenure-track faculty from historically underrepresented groups and — backed by record-level SPH fundraising — brought to campus as faculty and new public health scholars and leaders from a diverse array of professional backgrounds.

Provost Richard M. Locke said Brown will build on that momentum during Jha’s time at the White House, continuing to cultivate and direct resources for faculty recruitment and retention, student financial aid, facilities and academic program development.

“Ashish Jha has built on a foundation of early progress from the School of Public Health’s first decade, growing its focus on tackling the most important issues in health policy and practice, devising new ways to expand the accessibility of Brown’s public health degrees and expanding the school’s reputation exponentially,” Locke said. “As he heads to the White House to play an important role in the continued challenge of COVID-19, we look forward to building further on that momentum before we welcome him back.”

When Jha arrived at Brown, he made it clear that research, education and practice focused on addressing health inequities would be among the central organizing principles of the School of Public Health, and he has implemented strategies to expand diversity among health professionals. In 2020-21, SPH launched the Health Equity Scholars program with the goal of preparing MPH students from historically Black colleges and universities to address health disparities and become transformative leaders in public health careers. In the past year, applications to SPH programs from prospective students of color increased by 150%. And under Jha’s leadership, the school established a need-based financial aid policy for students seeking a master in public health degree.

To expand the ranks of public health leaders across the globe equipped with the knowledge and skills to take on urgent health challenges, Brown launched a fully online MPH program accepting applicants for Fall 2022. Jha also committed to double the number of tenure-track faculty from historically underrepresented groups in the next five years, achieving a 60% increase in the last year alone.

Dr. Megan Ranney, academic dean of the School of Public Health and another national leader for analysis and advice on the COVID-19 pandemic, said Jha will head to the White House having established an outstanding team of academic and administrative leaders, a burgeoning set of new academic initiatives, and a commitment to student support that will persist as he steps away temporarily for the short-term assignment. 

“We have a strong, dedicated team to fuel continued leadership and progress on key public health issues and challenges, including and beyond the pandemic,” Ranney said. “We proudly endorse President Biden’s decision and welcome Ashish’s national and global leadership.”

In the coming days, Locke expects to announce an interim dean to lead the School of Public Health’s strong leadership team to implement the priorities of the School during Jha’s short-term assignment to the White House.

“This is a moment of extraordinary opportunity for the Brown School of Public Health that brings even greater visibility to the groundbreaking work of our faculty, staff and students,” Locke said. “I’m honored to have the opportunity to ensure that the foundation that Dr. Jha has built continues to stand strong, and that we continue as an academic community to pursue new goals in support of our students, our scholarship and our commitment to serving the nation and the world.”

About Dr. Ashish K. Jha

An accomplished physician, health policy researcher and global health advocate, Jha began his tenure as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health in September 2020. He joined the University after leading the Harvard Global Health Institute and teaching at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. A general internist who practiced previously with the West Roxbury V.A. in Massachusetts, he had continued his practice at the Providence V.A. Medical Center. Jha has led groundbreaking research around Ebola and is now on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, leading national and international analysis of key issues and advising state and federal policy makers.

Jha was born in Pursaulia, Bihar, India, in 1970. He moved to Canada in 1979 and then to the United States in 1983. Jha earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1992 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997, before training in internal medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He completed his general medicine fellowship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and received his master of public health in 2004 from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

With sponsored funding from sources such as the National Institutes of Health, the Gates Foundation, the Climate Change Solutions Fund and the Commonwealth Fund, Jha’s research focuses on improving the quality of health care systems with a specialized focus on how national policies impact care. He has led some of the seminal work comparing the performance of the U.S. health system to those of other high-income countries to better understand why the U.S. spends more but often achieves less in population health. 

Jha co-chaired an international commission that examined the global response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and what could be done to strengthen the approach to pandemic preparedness and response. He has written extensively on the importance of international agencies like the World Health Organization and how they can be made more effective in infectious disease outbreaks like Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19.

He has published more than 200 empirical papers and writes regularly about ways to improve health care systems, both in the U.S. and globally. In addition to his academic appointments at Brown and Harvard, he has served in a number of roles at the federal level, including as special assistant to the secretary in the Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2013.

Jha was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.