Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is President Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has traditionally been the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. On March 5, the Stanford University professor of health policy will face questions from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee as he attempts to get confirmed to lead one of the country’s most powerful health agencies. Here’s what to know about Bhattacharya. He's the son of immigrants Bhattacharya was born in Kolkata, India and said in a podcast interview that his mother came from a slum, while his father, an electrical engineer, was part of the country’s middle class. In the 1970s, his family immigrated to the U.S., settling first in Massachusetts and then in California, outside of Los Angeles. When he was 18, Bhattacharya converted from Hinduism to become a Presbyterian. He's interested in health economics Bhattacharya earned four degrees at Stanford: a bachelor's degree, master's, MD, and PhD. He worked as an economist at the RAND Corporation before returning to Stanford to join the faculty. Bhattacharya has researched health economics and studied the the U.S.'s vulnerable populations, analyzing how the country's health care system and government policies affect the health of these groups.
