A personable, highly effective communicator, Jha became a media darling for his down-to-earth commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic. Then, in March 2022, he took leave from his post as dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health to help the White House manage its pandemic response at a time when fast-spreading variants continued to pose a major public health threat even as many Americans moved away from restrictions. In Washington, Jha has focused on promoting Covid-19 countermeasures such as bivalent booster shots, free at-home tests, and free masks for use in crowded public settings. “We are now at a point where I believe if you’re up to date on your vaccines, you have access to treatments … there really should be no restrictions on people’s activities,” Jha said at a STAT summit in November. “I’m pretty much living life the way I was living life in 2019.”
More in Government
Government
Monica Bertagnolli
Director, National Cancer Institute
Government
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure
Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Government
Robert Califf
Commissioner, FDA
Government
Demetre Daskalakis
Deputy coordinator, White House National MPox Response
Government
Arati Prabhakar
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
Government
Ala Stanford
Regional director, Department of Health and Human Services
Government
Nora Volkow
Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse
Government
Renee Wegrzyn
Director, ARPA-H