Walsh Appointed to Lead NIEHS
Dr. Kyle Walsh was appointed director of NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in October.
Walsh joined NIH from Duke University, where he served as associate professor of neurosurgery, pathology, population health sciences and pediatrics, and as director of the Division of neuro-epidemiology. He is also a senior fellow in the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development and a member of the Duke Cancer Institute.
Walsh’s research bridges laboratory and population-based science to understand how genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors interact to shape brain health, cancer risk and aging. His pioneering work on glial senescence and gliomagenesis has deepened our understanding of how environmental exposures and molecular mechanisms of aging converge to influence disease development.
Walsh succeeds Dr. Rick Woychik, who led NIEHS since 2020 and has accepted a senior appointment with the NIH Office of the Director, where he will focus on advancing the Make America Healthy Again initiatives. Under Woychik’s guidance, NIEHS advanced groundbreaking research in environmental epigenomics, community-engaged science and the integration of exposomics into public health.