Rochelle Walensky

Dr. Rochelle Walensky is an American public health official based in Washington, D.C. She serves as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to her profile on the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Prevention Policy Modeling Lab website, Walensky has been “internationally recognized for motivating US policy toward the promotion of routine HIV screening and for her work on effective and efficient strategies of HIV care in South Africa.”¹⁾

She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP), and has served as a member of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents.²⁾

From 2014-2015, Walensky served as chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council, a team within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) tasked with advising high-level officials on “the planning, coordination, and evaluation of research and other HIV/AIDS activities conducted or supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH),” including the Director of the Office of AIDS Research (OAR), the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Assistant Secretary for Health, and the Director of NIH.³⁾

Walensky was employed at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School prior to and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.⁴⁾

Walensky was among the first signatories to the John Snow Memorandum, published in the Lancet in October 2020 as a rebuttal to the Great Barrington Declaration.⁵⁾

On November 19, 2020, the journal Health Affairs published a study led by Walensky titled Clinical Outcomes Of A COVID-19 Vaccine: Implementation Over Efficacy.⁶⁾

Walensky was nominated to the directorship of the CDC by President-elect Joe Biden on December 7, 2020, replacing outgoing director Robert Redfield.⁷⁾

On May 5, 2023, Walensky announced her resignation as CDC Director, citing “the nation's progress in coping with COVID-19.”⁸⁾ The announcement coincided with the World Health Organization’s declaration that the “global health emergency” related to COVID-19 had ended.⁹⁾ Employees at the CDC were reportedly unaware of the news of Walensky’s departure until they heard the announcement themselves. She is set to remain in office until June 30.

It has been reported that Walensky's husband, Loren Walensky, co-founded Lytica Therapeutics in October, 2019, and quickly received millions of dollars in HHS grants.¹⁰⁾