US President-elect Donald Trump announced Indian-American Jay Bhattacharya to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health. The Stanford academic becomes the first Indian-American to be nominated for the top administrative position.

“Dr Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert Kennedy Jr to direct the National Medical Research and to make important discoveries that will improve health and save lives,” according to Trump’s statement on Tuesday evening.

The 56-year-old Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, and a Senior Fellow by courtesy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Hoover Institution.

He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. His Research focuses on the Health and Well-Being of vulnerable populations, emphasising the role of government programmes, Biomedical Innovation, and Economics. 

He is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an alternative to lockdowns proposed in October 2020. His peer-reviewed research has been published in Economics, Statistics, Legal, Medical, Public Health, and Health Policy Journals. Bhattacharya was born in Kolkata, India. He holds an MD and PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

“I am honored and humbled by President @realDonaldTrump’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!” he retweeted on Wednesday.

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