Since Jha’s arrival, graduate student enrollment at SPH is at an all-time high, more than doubling since 2020. More than 660 graduate students are actively enrolled, which is the largest graduate population in the school’s history. At the same time, more than 150 undergraduate students are currently pursuing public health as their concentration, as the school has prioritized training the next generation of health leaders.

“Helping lead and build this school has been an extraordinary privilege, and I’m enormously proud of what we as a team have accomplished,” Jha said. 

“We have rapidly become one of the leading public health institutions on key issues such as how we protect the world from biological threats, mitigate the health effects of climate change, improve the quality and efficiency of our health care systems, and target addiction to reduce its burden on our population.” Jha added. “I’m particularly grateful for President Paxson’s vision and for her support of our mission to build a world-class school of public health.”

Jha is a practicing physician with expertise in infectious diseases. As one of the nation’s leading public health experts, he took a short-term leave from Brown in April 2022 to serve as the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator at the request of President Joe Biden. 

“Ashish’s dedication to serving the nation and the world has been the hallmark of his work at the School of Public Health,” Brown President Christina H. Paxson said. “His legacy at Brown will be his cultivation of high-impact initiatives that improve the health and lives of millions of people around the world. We have strengthened our reputation for leveraging data and science to develop solutions to complex public health challenges.”

Prior to arriving at Brown, Jha was the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. While in that role, he was a practicing general internist at the V.A. Boston Healthcare System, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a professor of global health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. At the Harvard Chan School, he served as dean for global strategy from 2018 until departing to come to Brown. 

In addition to his academic appointments at Harvard, Jha previously 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. He is a globally recognized expert on pandemic preparedness and response, as well as on health policy research and practice, having testified multiple times before Congress. Jha was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.

Jha earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1992 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997 before training 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 master of public health in 2004 from Harvard’s Chan School.

Interim leadership

Jha’s final day at Brown will be Dec. 31, 2025. Dr. Francesca L. Beaudoin, academic dean of the School of Public Health and a professor of epidemiology and emergency medicine, will serve as interim dean of the school.

“For the past two years, Francesca has been part of an exceptional leadership team at the school and has been a key partner in SPH’s growth and success,” Doyle said. “Under her leadership, the school will continue to build its national influence in using data and analysis to inform recommendations for public health policy and concrete actions to improve population health.”

Beaudoin will oversee the school’s academic departments, research centers, doctoral and master’s programs, and undergraduate concentrations. With more than 150 faculty and 800 undergraduate and graduate students, the school is home to 13 nationally renowned research centers and receives more than $90 million in external funding annually.

In addition to the national and global public health initiatives that will continue to engage faculty and student scholars across the school in the coming months and years, SPH will continue research and education initiatives to make a positive impact on local communities. This includes work on public health challenges like Rhode Island’s overdose epidemic, efforts to address air and water pollution, and collaborating with scholars across disciplines to help families cope with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.