HOUSTON — President-elect Joe Biden wasted no time assembling an elite team of public health experts and medical professionals to help him pull the United States out of the deadliest health crisis in recent years.
Members of the administration's coronavirus advisory board were announced Monday by the Biden transition team. Top experts from all over the nation have been recruited— including Dr. Robert Rodriquez, a Brownsville, Texas native.
Who is Dr. Robert Rodriguez?
Rodriguez brings more than 25 years of medical experience to the team. He is currently a professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.
According to the Biden campaign, Rodriguez works on the frontline in the emergency department and intensive care unit at two major trauma centers.
He has reportedly written more than 100 scientific publications and has led national research teams examining a range of topics in medicine, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of frontline providers.
Many of his writings focus on the Latino groups, especially undocumented immigrants.
Rodriguez is committed to improving health care for under-served populations — which Biden has promised to give priority due the pandemic's disproportionate impact on these communities.
During the summer, Rodriguez was back home, assisting with COVID-19 patients in the ICU in Brownsville, a Texas border town.
Rodriguez graduated from the University of Notre Dame before attending Harvard Medical School. Rodriguez then completed an Emergency Medicine residency at UCLA and a Critical Care Medicine fellowship at Stanford.
Other notable members
The co-chairs are former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a Yale University professor and researcher.
Notable among the task force members is Rick Bright, a vaccine expert and former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was reassigned to a lesser job because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug pushed by President Donald Trump as a COVID-19 treatment.
First major step
The advisory board is Biden's first major decision after he defeated President Trump over the weekend to become the 46th president of the United States, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil.
Biden won't be sworn into office until Jan. 20.
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