Rear Admiral Erica G. Schwartz.
US Department of Health and Human Services
President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concluding a months-long effort to choose a permanent leader of the embattled health agency.
Schwartz, who will have to be confirmed by the Senate, would take over from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is overseeing a series of controversial changes to the agency's health policies, including a review of childhood vaccine recommendations.
Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration, where she played a major role in the United States' response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She spent more than 20 years in uniform, including as a rear admiral and chief medical officer of the Coast Guard.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had been acting director of the CDC, a title that expired last month under federal law. That law, called the Vacancies Act, limits to 210 days the amount of time an acting official can serve in place of a Senate-confirmed official.
Late last month marked 210 days since the CDC's most recent director, Dr. Susan Monarez, was fired.
A sign stands outside the Roybal campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., on March 18, 2026.
Megan Varner | Reuters
She has so far been the only person to be confirmed CDC director during Trump's second term, holding the position for less than a month last summer. In testimony before Congress in September, Monarez said she was fired after rejecting Kennedy's demands to approve vaccine recommendations that she believed lacked scientific support.
It's unclear how Schwartz's views on vaccines or other key public health policies compare to Kennedy's.
Also on Thursday, Trump said he chose Sean Slovenski as deputy director and chief operating officer of the CDC, and Jennifer Shuford as deputy director and chief medical officer of the CDC. Shuford, as head of the Texas Department of State Health Services, led the state's response to a massive measles outbreak last year, crediting vaccination and testing for declaring it over.
Schwartz's nomination comes after several tumultuous months for the agency, which is reeling from leadership turmoil, falling morale, significant staff turnover and controversial changes to U.S. vaccine policy. Before the leaders' departure last year, staff members were shocked by the attack by a gunman on the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on August 8.
Last month, a judge blocked a critical vaccine panel's efforts to overhaul U.S. immunization policy. That includes an effort to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
Trust in federal health agencies has plummeted during Kennedy's tenure as secretary of Health and Human Services, according to a February survey by health policy research group KFF, with declines across the political spectrum.
