PERSON: Rochelle Walensky

Senior Fellow

Rochelle Paula Walensky (née Bersoff; born April 5, 1969) is an American physician-scientist who served as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023 and had also served as the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in her capacity as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023. On May 5, 2023, she announced her resignation, effective June 30, 2023. Prior to her appointment at the CDC, she had served as the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Walensky is an expert on HIV/AIDS.

Walensky was born Rochelle Paula Bersoff in Peabody, Massachusetts, to Edward Bersoff and Carol Bersoff-Bernstein. Her family is Jewish. She was raised in Potomac, Maryland. Walensky graduated high school from Winston Churchill High School in 1987.

In 1991, Walensky received a Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University in St. Louis. In 1995, she received an Doctor of Medicine from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. From 1995 to 1998, she trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Walensky then became a fellow in the Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program. In 2001, she earned an MPH in clinical effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health.

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