After helping steer U.S. COVID policy under two presidents, Dr. Anthony Fauci is set to take up a professorship at Georgetown University.
Starting July 1, Dr. Fauci will join the university as a “distinguished professor” teaching medicine and public policy. He will be teaching as a part of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the school and also received an appointment to the McCourt School of Public Policy.
“We are deeply honored to welcome Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a dedicated public servant, humanitarian and visionary global health leader, to Georgetown,” Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said in a statement.
In a statement from Georgetown, the doctor said that choosing the university was a “no-brainer.” He and his wife, Christine Grady, were married on campus in 1985 and all three of their children were born in the Georgetown University Hospital.
“When you look around, all of a sudden it became very clear what I wanted to do because Georgetown essentially filled all of those criteria — and then it has so many other aspects of it that you couldn’t make it up,” he said.
The doctor’s Catholic and Jesuit background also factored into his decision-making. Dr. Fauci attended two Jesuit educational organizations, Regis High School in New York City and the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, which he said cultivated his desire to serve others. Georgetown is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution for higher learning in the country.
The announcement is a serious career change for the 82-year-old who, until December, was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years. During his time at the NIAID, he became one of the leading researchers of HIV/AIDS and advised several presidents through health scares from Ebola and Zika. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.
As the public face of the U.S. COVID-19 response during the Trump and Biden administrations, Dr. Fauci received an immense amount of scrutiny from pandemic skeptics, especially conservatives. He received death threats and eventually was given a security detail.
Despite leaving government life behind last year, Dr. Fauci has remained a political lightning rod ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.