National Leader on Public Health and COVID-19 Response
2023 John Jay Award Honoree
Ashish K. Jha, M.D. is a globally recognized expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as domestic and global health policy.
In addition to his work as a practicing physician, he served as dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, and was appointed as White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator by President Biden.
Jha has led groundbreaking Ebola research and has been a trusted voice on the COVID-19 response, leading national and international analysis of key issues and advising state and federal policy makers. He joined Brown in 2020 after leading the Harvard Global Health Institute and teaching at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.
As a general internist, Jha has practiced for nearly two decades at Veterans Affairs hospitals, providing direct clinical care to Veterans. In addition, he has published more than 250 original research publications in leading medical and health policy journals and is a frequent contributor to a range of public media. His research has focused primarily on the impact of public health policy on health outcomes and healthcare spending both domestically and globally.
Born in Pursaulia, Bihar, India, Jha moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1979 and to the United States in 1983. He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in economics, and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has been a member of the National Academy of Medicine since 2013.
