WASHINGTON — Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid response coordinator, is leaving the Biden administration this month for a senior position at Brown University.
Jha, who has overseen the administration’s pandemic strategy since the start of 2022, will return to Brown as dean of the university’s school of public health on July 1, the school confirmed in a press release. THURSDAY.
“We are in a world radically changed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Jha said in a statement. “Despite everything we have done to reduce disease and save lives, COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses in our public health and healthcare systems. I look forward to returning to Brown to continue our groundbreaking work. transforming public health education, research and practice to convert these weaknesses into strengths.”
Jha’s departure, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes about a month after the Biden administration ended the national emergency and public health emergency related to the Covid pandemic. Earlier in May, the World Health Organization declared the end of the global health emergency.
President Joe Biden praised Jha in a statement, saying, “As one of America’s leading public health experts, [Jha] has effectively translated and communicated complex scientific challenges into concrete actions that have helped save and improve the lives of millions of Americans.”
Biden named Jha Covid Response Coordinator in March 2022, taking over from Jeff Zients, who became Biden’s second White House chief of staff. At that time, the United States was still grappling with Covid cases from new strains of the virus.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com