Announcement: School of Public Health Dean

February 27, 2020

Dear Members of the Brown Community,

It is with great enthusiasm that we write to announce the appointment of physician and leading health policy researcher Ashish K. Jha, M.D., MPH, to serve as the next dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, effective September 1, 2020. Currently, Dr. Jha is the K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard Chan School of Public Health and faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. He is also a practicing general internist at the VA Boston Healthcare System and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Since 2018, he has served as dean for Global Strategy at the Chan School.

As dean of the School of Public Health, Dr. Jha will be charged with advancing overall academic excellence and providing strategic direction and intellectual leadership for the school. He will oversee the school’s four academic departments, 13 research centers, doctoral and master’s programs and its undergraduate concentration. Integral to his role will be cultivating a diverse and inclusive academic community within the school. Key responsibilities include developing and executing strategies to continue to expand sponsored research funding, and elevating Public Health’s profile and impact locally and globally. He will provide administrative oversight, and work to ensure the school’s fiscal strength and long-term sustainability. As dean, Dr. Jha will report directly to the provost, and will be a member of the Provost’s Senior Academic Deans and the President’s Cabinet. He will also work closely with an engaged Advisory Council.

Dr. Jha is an accomplished scholar, educator, academic leader and global health advocate who is committed to advancing the University’s mission to address pressing societal issues through exceptional interdisciplinary research, teaching and service. With sponsored funding from sources such as the National Institutes of Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Climate Change Solutions Fund, and the Commonwealth Fund, his research focuses on improving the quality and costs of healthcare systems with a specialized focus on how national policies, such as value-based payments and health information technology, impact care. Dr. Jha has led some of the seminal work comparing the performance of the U.S. health system to those of other high-income countries to understand better why the U.S. spends more but often achieves less in terms of population health. This has included research to understand the factors that underlie racial disparities in care and effective strategies that can narrow the gap.

Jha received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and trained in Internal Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He completed his General Medicine fellowship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, and received his M.P.H. from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In addition to his academic appointments, he served in a number of roles at the federal level, including as special assistant to the secretary in the Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2013.

A prolific writer, he has published more than 200 empirical papers and writes regularly about ways to improve healthcare systems, both in the U.S. and globally. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and in 2013, Dr. Jha was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

The School of Public Health is central to Brown’s aspirations to make a difference in the world through consequential research, teaching and engagement, and we look forward to working closely with Ashish as he assumes this critical role.

Sincerely,

Christina H. Paxson, President 

Ricahrd M. Locke, Provost