President-elect Joe Biden has selected a doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital to be the next head of the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report released Sunday night.
Sources told Politico that Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at MGH and a professor at Harvard Medical School, will be appointed to the position.
She would be the 19th director of the CDC, and take the helm in the midst of one of its greatest crises, the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Robert Redfield is the current director of the CDC, serving in the role since March 2018.
NBC10 Boston has reached out to Mass. General for confirmation of Walensky’s role in the Biden-Harris administration.
Walensky is chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council and is a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents.
Walensky, who is also a practicing doctor at MGH and Brigham and Women's Hospital, studies HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, the costs involved in HIV testing and how to conduct and evaluate clinical trials, according to her bio on the Mass. General website.
