Ashish Kumar Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, was born in Pursaulia, Bihar, India, and came to the United States in 1983. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Columbia University and both an MD and a master’s degree in public health at Harvard University.
A practicing physician and global leader in public health research, Jha is known as a source of trusted information and guidance to policymakers around the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, one of Fortune’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” and a recipient of the John Jay Award from Columbia University.
Jha is a longtime leader in pandemic preparedness and response, from directing research on Ebola to serving on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. President Joe Biden appointed Jha as White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator in March 2022. In that role, he led the work that increased the development of and access to treatments and newly formulated vaccines, improved testing and surveillance, and put in place an infrastructure to respond to current and future disease outbreaks.
Jha also found a way to communicate with and reassure a broad spectrum of the public during the pandemic. He believes his personal history was helpful in that regard. “As an immigrant, you’re always negotiating across multiple cultures,” he told the New Yorker. “I think there’s something that allows you to see other people’s perspectives and bridge divides more easily. It’s also true that, as an immigrant, you always feel a bit like an outsider.”
