Rochelle Walensky

Rochelle Paula Walensky was born on April 5, 1969, in Peabody, Massachusetts, and raised in Potomac, Maryland. She developed an early interest in medicine and later pursued a strong academic path. In 1991, Walensky earned a Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University in St. Louis. She continued her medical education at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, receiving her Doctor of Medicine in 1995. Following this, she completed her internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1995 to 1998. Her specialized training included an Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program at Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and she also earned a Master of Public Health in clinical effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2001. These foundational experiences prepared her for a career dedicated to infectious disease research and public health.

Walensky’s academic career at Harvard Medical School began in 2001, where she progressed from instructor to professor of medicine by 2012. From 2017 to 2020, she served as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research focused on HIV/AIDS policy, particularly on improving screening and care in South Africa and evaluating clinical trial designs. She was recognized for her contributions to HIV policy with over 300 publications and an NIH MERIT award. She also held leadership roles such as Chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health from 2014 to 2015 and served on the US Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents since 2011. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was a signatory of the John Snow Memorandum and conducted research on SARS-CoV-2 screening strategies for college campuses and vaccine delivery.

In December 2020, President-elect Joe Biden appointed Walensky as the 19th Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a role she officially began on January 20, 2021. In this capacity, she led the agency through the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing its response to new virus variants and launching the “Moving Forward” reforms to strengthen CDC operations and communications. Under her leadership, the CDC also addressed a multinational mpox outbreak and contained Ebola in Uganda. She focused on rebuilding public trust and modernizing the nation’s public health infrastructure, securing funding for data modernization and expanding the public health workforce. Walensky announced her departure from the CDC in May 2023, effective June 30, 2023, remarking on the agency’s efforts during a complex period. Since then, she has lectured on Law at Harvard Law School and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, and is a trustee for the Doris Duke Foundation and The Carter Center.