Brian Strom

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Strom is the inaugural chancellor of Rutgers School of Biomedical and Health Sciences and along with Perry Halkitis, the dean of the university’s School of Public Health, has been among the most prominent sources of information about the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. And that, given the recent omicron wave, persisted into the early spring. Academics will continue to be sought out for information about vaccines, variants and boosters.

Among his achievements over his six years at Rutgers is the establishment of a formal partnership with RWJBarnabas Health to create New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive academic health system. Expanding access and bridging academic divides, Strom is set to play a part at the $665 million New Jersey Innovation and Technology Hub coming to New Brunswick, which Princeton University will also use. There, the Rutgers Translational Research Facility and a new academic medical building will be components of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, under Strom’s guidance.

As steam begins to pick up around transforming University Hospital in Newark, which is also affiliated with Rutgers, the once beleaguered facility stands to become a national model for public health and research. “The design of a future-focused University Hospital will facilitate innovative training for our students and support life-changing medical breakthroughs for our patients,” Strom said in January after Gensler was chosen to create a master plan for the project. “We are excited to assist in the development of a plan that will so greatly enrich the lives of our patients and community members.”

Heading into the New Year, Strom said that his wish was “for the world to truly embrace the importance and value of science in informing our public policies and personal actions – achieving a uniform acceptance of vaccination, accepting community-oriented public health countermeasures, and advancing the clinical and research initiatives needed to decisively contain and control the COVID-19 pandemic.” All resolutions we’re sure Strom will be at the forefront of pushing, and creating understanding, for.