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Employees at the National Institutes of Health learned in an email on Friday, in the midst of a hiring freeze, that their prestigious environmental health sciences research center has a new director.

There was no job announcement, no search committee to identify top candidates, no interviews or reference checks.

The position to lead the nation’s premier environmental health research institute wasn’t even open.

Yet Jay Bhattacharya, a political appointee who oversees the 27 institutes and centers under NIH, named Kyle Walsh, an associate professor in neurosurgery at Duke University, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

In an email dated Oct. 17, Bhattacharya informed NIH employees, who were told they may periodically check their emails for updates about the shutdown, that Walsh’s appointment was effective Oct. 10. The email called Walsh a leader in neuro-epidemiology whose research bridges laboratory and population-based science to understand how genetics and environment interact to shape brain health, cancer risk and aging.

Bhattacharya said that the previous director, Richard Woychik, had accepted a senior appointment within the NIH Office of the Director, where he will focus on advancing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiatives.

The NIH director — who President Donald Trump said would work with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore the agency to “a Gold Standard of Medical Research” — did not mention that Walsh calls Vice President JD Vance “one of his closest friends” or that Vance officiated at his wedding.

It is unprecedented to appoint someone at such an early stage of their career who lacks the type of leadership experience required to manage a major research institution, current and former federal scientists say. And all directors of NIH institutes, except for the director of the National Cancer Institute, who is a political appointee, go through a rigorous screening and vetting process after an open search.