PROVIDENCE — Ashish K. Jha, one of the nation’s leading public health experts who became a household name during the Covid pandemic, is leaving his post as the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health at the end of this year.
Jha, a practicing physician with expertise in infectious diseases and former professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, will go on to lead an initiative that aims to bolster the nation’s defenses against emerging pandemic and biological threats, according to Brown spokesman Brian Clark. The initiative builds on the work he started at the White House during the Biden administration while on leave from Brown in 2022, which he further cultivated when he returned to Brown in 2023.
“As the U.S. and other nations have continued to witness the impact of avian flu, mpox, COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, Ashish’s work can bring scientists, policymakers and organizations together to develop solutions to confront a new era of biological threats,” said Brown Provost Francis J. Doyle III in a statement.
