Jack Whitescarver

Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D. 
2000–2015

Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D. became the first Deputy Director of the NIH’s new OAR in 1988. He served first as Acting Director, and then as permanent Director of OAR from October 2000 to June 2015. Dr. Whitescarver received his Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He pursued his postdoctoral research at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focusing on immunopathogenesis of rickettsia infection. In his position as a Research Associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Medical School, his research interests included obligate intracellular parasites.

In 1977, Dr. Whitescarver completed a year in the Grants Associates Program at the NIH and became the Special Assistant to the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). It was during this tenure that Dr. Whitescarver first reported to NIAID on the possibility of the emergence of a new infectious disease, now known as AIDS, and he helped develop the initial federal response for AIDS research. In 2010, Dr. Whitescarver received the inaugural International AIDS Society’s Presidential Award for his “outstanding commitment to the global fight against HIV and his pioneering work in the field.”