Meet Bihar-born Dr Ashish Jha, who will lead the White House COVID response for the next pandemic phase

Washington, Mar 18: Indian-American public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha will take over as US President Joe Biden's COVID-19 Response Coordinator next month. The White House announced yesterday that President Biden's COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients and his deputy Natalie Quillian are leaving the administration next month.

Their departure comes as the White House is shifting its posture from one of confronting an emergency to nudging Americans back to normalcy as the nation learns to live with a less-severe coronavirus that is likely to remain endemic.

Dr Ashish Jha is an expert in disease research and public health policy

Dr Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

In his statement, US President said, as they enter a new moment in the pandemic - executing on his National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan and managing the ongoing risks from COVID - Dr Jha is the perfect person for the job.

President Biden praised Dr Jha as one of the leading public health experts in America and a well-known figure to many Americans from his wise and calming public presence. He said, Jha's appointment highlighted his communications skills and familiarity to Americans as a fixture on cable news.

In a statement released by Brown University, Jha said he was honored by the president's invitation to join the administration. "To the American people, I promise I will be straightforward and clear in sharing what we know, in explaining what we don't know and how we will learn more, and what the future will ask of all of us," Jha said.

The 51-year-old Bihar-born Jha replaced Jeff Zients, a management consultant and former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Ashish Jha worked as the K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Faculty Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, as well as a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group. On September 1, 2020, he became the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health

Jha was born in Pursaulia, Bihar in 1970 and moved to Canada in 1979 and then to the United States in 1983.

After earning a bachelors degree in economics from Columbia University in 1992 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997, he trained in internal medicine at the University of California in San Francisco.

In March of 2020, Jha was appointed the third dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. He assumed the role in September of 2020.

During Jha's tenure and the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic, the school has expanded its programatic offerings, physical footprint, and faculty.