Duke professor, JD Vance friend named director of NIH’s RTP office. Some see issue.
.jpg "A sign outside the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.")
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NIH appointed Duke professor Kyle Walsh as NIEHS director amid vetting concerns.
- Staff and former directors say appointment bypassed standard nationwide search process.
- Walsh is a close friend of VP JD Vance and will oversee NIEHS’s $914M budget.
The National Institutes of Health has appointed a Duke University professor and close friend of Vice President JD Vance to be the new director of its Research Triangle Park-based environmental sciences division in a hiring some say skipped standard vetting procedures.
In an email to NIEHS staff Oct. 17, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya announced Kyle Walsh had taken over as head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences on Oct. 10. Walsh replaced Rick Woychik, who became NIEHS director in 2020 and was reappointed to another five-year term in June. Bhattacharya’s message, which was obtained by The News & Observer, said Woychik had accepted a senior role with the NIH Office of the Director to advance Make American Healthy Again policies.
“A leader in neuro-epidemiology, Dr. Walsh’s research bridges laboratory and population-based science to understand how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors interact to shape brain health, cancer risk, and aging,” Bhattacharya wrote.
Walsh previously worked as an associate professor of neurosurgery and pathology at Duke. He called Vance “one of my closest friends,” in an interview with The Sontag Foundation, noting the future vice president officiated at his wedding and roomed with him and his wife for a period in 2015. Both men attended Ohio State University and graduate schools at Yale University. Walsh later served as a science policy adviser for Vance in the U.S. Senate.
“I think the process is concerning,” said Linda Birnbaum, who served as NIEHS director from 2009 to 2019. “I think Kyle Walsh appears to do good epidemiology related to brain cancer, aging and brain cancer. I don’t see anything in his resume that indicates any environmental interest.”
NIEHS studies human-environmental reactions to promote public health. Among 27 NIH institutes and centers, it is the only one based outside greater Washington, D.C. NIEHS was an early Research Triangle Park tenant and shares a Durham campus with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Its director oversees a budget of $914 million and steers strategy on which major environmental issues to pursue. Recent initiatives included health studies on climate change, RNA sequencing technology, and sleep. NIEHS also houses the National Toxicology Program.
Walsh’s appointment caught NIEHS staff “by surprise,” said Edith Lee, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 2923, which represents the agency’s RTP workforce. “He was not hired in a manner that was how directors are typically appointed,” she said, noting no search committee was announced.
Jeremy Berg, former director of another NIH institute, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, said he was “shocked” by Walsh’s hiring. “I’ve been tracking all the vacancies among institute directors and NIEHS was not among them,” he said. “And I knew from my time at NIH that the process for doing searches for institute directors was a very rigorous, thorough process. Really trying to identify a pool of strong candidates and then vetting them carefully and eventually making recommendations to the NIH director. This seemed utterly unrelated to that process.”
Birnbaum, now a scholar in residence at Duke and an adjunct professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, said Walsh was rumored to be the next NIEHS director as early as January. She also said past directors were identified following nationwide committee searches and several interview rounds with multiple candidates.
She herself was appointed to the position after working 19 years at the EPA where Birnbaum directed an environmental health research division. Before Woychik led NIEHS, he served as the institute’s deputy director for nine years.
“I don’t see any significant managerial experience (on Walsh’s resume),” Birnbaum said. “Most institute directors have run significant programs. That’s part of the leadership and management that is important in running a close to billion-dollar organization.”
On his LinkedIn profile, Walsh states he oversaw a brain tumor research project “of 42 faculty members from 14 different clinical and basic science departments” through his position as co-leader of a Duke Cancer Institute neuro-oncology program. He also served as a senior fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.
“Dr. Walsh was appointed to run the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences because he is a leader in the field of neuro-epidemiology,” Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hillard said in an email. Hillard later called Walsh “the right scientist to lead NIEHS’ mission to improve human health by advancing knowledge of how the environment affects biological systems.”
The institute had 685 full-time employees last year, a headcount that has since been reduced by layoffs and voluntary buyouts under the Trump administration. Most NIEHS staff are furloughed during the ongoing federal government shutdown, Lee said, while some have been deemed essential and are expected to continue working.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
