President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Xavier Becerra and Rochelle Walensky to serve in the respective roles of secretary of health and human services (HHS) and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Becerra has been serving as California’s 33rd attorney general since 2017 while Walensky is currently the chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's division of infectious diseases, Biden’s transition team said Monday.
Becerra, who previously served 12 terms as a member of the House of Representatives, will become the first Department of Health and Human Services secretary of Latino descent if confirmed for the role.
Vivek Murthy and Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chairs of Biden’s COVID-19 Transition Advisory Board, have also been selected to respectively serve as U.S. Surgeon General and chair of the COVID-19 Equity Task Force.
Other appointees to Biden's health team include Anthony Fauci as COVID-19 chief medical adviser to the president, Jeffrey Zients as COVID-19 response coordinator and counselor to the president; and Natalie Quillian as deputy coordinator for COVID-19 response.
Fauci previously served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases while Zients previously held director roles at the National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget. Quillian was most recently Biden's deputy campaign manager.