Das Appointed NIMHD Division Director

Dr. Rina Das

Dr. Rina Das has been named director of the Division of Integrative Biological and Behavioral Sciences (IBBS) at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. 

Since joining the institute in 2014 as a program director, Das has made major contributions to NIMHD’s extramural scientific programs and received many awards for her scientific leadership and collaborative efforts. She lends her expertise to a wide array of initiatives that seek to improve minority health and health disparities, including translational sciences, cancer health disparities, social epigenomics, liver disease disparities, sleep health disparities and immigrant health. 

At NIMHD Das initiated a new program on social epigenomics to integrate two different fields of social and biological sciences that has resulted in many funded applications, not only at NIMHD but also across NIH. She also launched the Immigrant Health Initiative to improve understanding of the factors for health advantages and health disparities among immigrant populations, and to develop interventions to address those gaps. In addition, she has led efforts to increase diversity in the biomedical workforce through numerous programs throughout NIMHD and NIH.

Prior to joining NIMHD, Das served as a program director at NCI’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities and as an NHLBI scientific review officer.

Das earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, in 1987. Her postdoctoral training in cancer research took place in the intramural labs at the National Cancer Institute, where she focused on the relationship between genes, hormones and breast cancer.