Statement on the Selection of Dr. Rick Woychik as Senior Advisor to the NIH Director for the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Strategy
Statement Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Statement on the Selection of Dr. Rick Woychik as Senior Advisor to the NIH Director for the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Strategy
I am delighted to announce that Richard Woychik, Ph.D., has been selected to serve as Senior Advisor for NIH’s Make America Healthy Again Strategy. In this pivotal role, he will help advance a bold, forward-looking agenda that unites research and innovation across NIH’s Institutes and Centers. His leadership will support efforts to identify the root causes of chronic disease, strengthen the nation’s health resilience, and promote equitable, data-driven prevention strategies.
Dr. Woychik brings a distinguished record of scientific leadership and strategic vision. Since June 2020, he has served as Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Under his direction, NIEHS launched the 2025–2029 Strategic Plan, Health at the Intersection of People and Their Environments, which charts an ambitious path forward in exposomics, precision environmental health, the health impacts of extreme weather, environmental health disparities, and data science.
Before joining NIH, Dr. Woychik served for nearly a decade as President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he led transformative growth, including five major construction projects and major expansions in translational research and data science. He previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at Lynx Therapeutics, helping pioneer massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS), an early breakthrough that paved the way for next-generation genomic sequencing. He also held leadership roles at the Parke-Davis Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, applying emerging genomic technologies to drug discovery.
Dr. Woychik’s scientific foundation was shaped by influential work in academia and the national laboratory system. At Case Western Reserve University, he served as Professor and Vice Chair for Research in Pediatrics, with joint appointments in Genetics and Pharmacology. He later directed the Office of Functional Genomics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leading groundbreaking studies in mammalian genetics and mutagenesis. His laboratory was the first to identify a gene associated with polycystic kidney disease, link a protocadherin gene to hearing loss in Cushing’s disease, and clone the agouti gene, advancing understanding of obesity-related pathways.
Dr. Woychik earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Case Western Reserve University in 1984. His research has focused on environmentally mediated epigenetic changes that influence health and disease—an area closely aligned with NIH’s mission and the goals of the Make America Healthy Again Strategy.
Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Rick for his exemplary service as NIEHS Director and in congratulating him on this exciting new leadership role. His experience, vision, and commitment to public health will be invaluable as we work together to improve the health of the nation.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
NIH Director
About the ľ¹ÏÖ±²¥ (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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