2020: Dr. Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH
Fifth Annual Richard V. Lee, MD Lectureship in Global Health
Lecturer Biography
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, and a professor of health services, policy and practice is a leading national figure addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and is interviewed frequently by national news organizations such as CNN.
Dr. Jha is the former K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI). He is a practicing general internist and also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Jha received his MD 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 and received his MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Jha is a member of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In September 2020, Dr. Jha began his position as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Dr. Jha’s research focuses on improving the quality and costs of healthcare systems with a specialized focus on the impact of policies. He has published over 200 papers in prestigious journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the BMJ, and heads a personal blog on using statistical data research to improve health quality. He has led groundbreaking research around Ebola and is now on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response.
Dr. Jha leads national analysis of key issues around the COVID-19 pandemic, advising policy makers and elected officials at the state and federal level and appearing frequently on national television news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox, and in written coverage from national newspapers including the New York Times and the Washington Post. His team is providing critical analysis and data on national and state-by-state testing with Dr. Jha, who is also a vocal advocate for increased testing and contact tracing who has written extensively on the subject. His work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and Stat News among others.