Who Is Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s Pick For Head Of NIH?

Following the results of the 2024 Presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump announced his picks for key roles in his administration which will take charge of the country in January 2025. Hot on the heels of nominations for Indian Americans Vivek Ramaswamy and Kash Patel, Trump recently announced another Indian American to lead the prestigious National Institutes of Health – Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya.

Bay-Area-based Bhattacharya completed his M.D. from Stanford University’s Department of Medicine in 1997, followed by a PhD at the university’s Department of Economics in 2001. He then began a distinguished teaching career at Stanford, where he currently serves as a professor of medicine, economics, and health policy. 

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The 56-year-old rose to prominence during the pandemic in 2020, when he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter that criticized the lockdown measures at the time, advocating instead for low-risk people to build up herd immunity against the coronavirus. Bhattacharya also publicly criticized Francis Collins, then Director of the NIH, and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the time. 

If confirmed, Bhattacharya and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – selected to head the Department of Health and Human Services – will lead changes in the country’s health policy. 

In a post announcing Bhattacharya as his pick to lead the NIH, Trump said, “Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease.”

In response, Bhattacharya wrote on X, “I am honored and humbled by President Donald Trump’s nomination of me to be the next NIH director. We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!”