Jay Bhattacharya

Jayanta Bhattacharya (born 1968) is an American physician-scientist and health economist who has served as the 18th director of the National Institutes of Health since 2025.

Bhattacharya was a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University until March 2025, when he left his position and became an emeritus professor so that he could start his position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He also was an investigator at Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging whose research focused on the economics of health care. In November 2024, President Donald Trump named Bhattacharya as his choice to lead the NIH, and he was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 25, 2025.

Bhattacharya is the first Indian American to lead the NIH. He opposed the lockdowns and mask mandates imposed in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, he was a co-author in 2020 of the Great Barrington Declaration.

Bhattacharya was born in 1968 in Kolkata, India, to a Bengali Hindu family. He later became a naturalized American citizen. At Stanford University, he completed both a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) in economics in 1990, graduating with honors and earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa. While in college, Bhattacharya converted to Christianity. He continued his studies at Stanford, simultaneously pursuing a medical degree and a doctorate in economics. He earned his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1997 and completed his Ph.D. at Stanford in economics, econometrics, and health economics in 2000. His doctoral dissertation, "Lifetime returns to specialization in medicine," was supervised by professor Thomas MaCurdy.

Bhattacharya began his career at the RAND Corporation as an economist (1998–2001), while simultaneously serving as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA. He later held a research fellowship at the Hoover Institution from 2006 to 2008.

At Stanford University, Bhattacharya held multiple academic appointments. He served as a professor of medicine, with courtesy professorships in both economics and health research and policy. He was also a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and directed Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Additionally, he maintains positions as a senior fellow by courtesy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and as a research associate at both Acumen LLC and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His research has focused on population health and well-being, with particular attention to the impact of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economic factors.

Bhattacharya was an early opponent of lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and questioned the severity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19.