Ashish Jha


Ashish K. Jha is an Indian American physician and academic who has been recently appointed as the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. He is an American health scholar, the K.T. Li Professor of Global Health Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, as well as a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group. His research centers on improving the quality and cost of health care, focusing on the impact of public health policy.

Education & Early Career

Jha received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997 and then trained as a resident in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He returned to Boston to complete his fellowship in General Medicine from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 2004, he completed his Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He originally hails from Madhubani, Bihar, India. He was Born in Bihar in 1970 and moved originally to Toronto, Canada in 1979. He moved to the United States in 1983 and has lived there since.

Research

Coronavirus and COVID-19

In mid-March, Jha called for a two-week national quarantine across the United States to reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jha's argument is that it takes up to two weeks for those who are already infected with the novel coronavirus to begin showing symptoms; given the lack of COVID-19 testing in the U.S., a two-week quarantine would help public health better assess how widespread the disease is to better inform decision-making. He has also advocated for the need to vastly strengthen healthcare infrastructure and increase the manufacturing of personal protective equipment to keep healthcare workers safe.

Awards & Honors