Home Appointments Director
Director
US National Institutes of Health (NIH)
| Appointee | Monica Bertagnolli |
|---|---|
| Role | Director |
| Organisation | US National Institutes of Health (NIH) |
| Domain | Health Regulatory |
| Start | 9 November 2023 |
| End | 17 January 2025 |
| Notes | First woman to permanently head NIH (17th Director) |
Institutional context
The National Institutes of Health is the principal medical-research agency of the United States, with an annual budget of more than $40 billion and oversight of 27 institutes and centres. The Director of NIH leads the agency. From 1955 (in the modern Director role) through 2023, every permanent Director was male. Bertagnolli is the first woman to hold the position permanently. (Lawrence Tabak served briefly as Acting Director between Francis Collins's departure and Bertagnolli's confirmation.)
Career path
Bertagnolli earned a BSE in biochemical engineering from Princeton and an MD from the University of Utah School of Medicine. She held faculty positions at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, becoming Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology. She is a surgical oncologist with substantial research focus on gastrointestinal cancers and on the design of large-scale clinical trials. She served as Director of the National Cancer Institute, the largest of the NIH institutes, from October 2022.
Appointment
President Biden nominated her in May 2023. The Senate confirmed her on 7 November 2023 by 49–47 (the contested vote reflected partisan disputes over agency policy rather than the nominee's qualifications). She was sworn in 9 November 2023.
Tenure
She served as the 17th NIH Director from 9 November 2023 to 17 January 2025, departing with the change of administration. Tenure included continued implementation of the Cancer Moonshot programme, oversight of post-COVID research-policy reviews, and the agency's strategic-plan refresh.
Cluster context
Bertagnolli's 2023 appointment is part of the principal cluster's regulatory-medical sub-pattern. The CDC, NIH, FDA (in acting form), and major federal-health agencies registered first-or-acting-first-woman events in a tight 2021–2023 window, with the FDA the only one of the four to remain headed by a male permanent Commissioner across the cluster.