WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Dr. Jill Jim has been chosen as one of four people to serve on the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Advisory Board. The announcement that the Navajo Department of Health executive director would join the board came Nov. 26. She was appointed to her position at the Navajo Department of Health by Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer at the start of their administration in Jan. 2019.
“Dr. Jim’s extensive public health experience and expertise has been a major benefit for the Navajo Nation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and now she will serve on a much broader level to help fight this modern-day monster throughout the country,” Nez said. “Our Nation’s COVID-19 preventative measures and restrictions put forth by our public health experts have served as a model for other states and entities across the country.
It was Nez who recommended Dr. Jim be appointed to the Advisory Board.
“I congratulate her and thank her for her dedication and commitment to helping our Navajo people,” he said.
Dr. Jim is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, originally from Navajo Mountain, Utah, and a fluent Navajo speaker. She earned a Doctorate in Public Health, a Master’s Degree in Health Care Administration, a second Master’s in Public Health from the University of Utah. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Promotion and Community Health Education from Northern Arizona University.
Some of her previous work experience includes serving as a Health Care Analyst for HealthInsight in Albuquerque, consultant for Navajo Area Indian Health Service, and epidemiologist for the Utah Department of Health.
“I am proud to serve as a member of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board,” Jim stated. “ I look forward to working with fellow members of the advisory board to help prepare an urgent, robust, and professional response to the global public health crisis, for President-elect Biden to lead with on day one.”
The Biden-Harris COVID-19 Advisory Board is chaired by former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. David Kessler, former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and Yale University Dean Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a professor of internal medicine and a health equity researcher.
The other two appointments announced include Jane Hopkins, a nurse who specializes in mental health and a leader of several nurses’ unions, and David Michaels, an epidemiologist and professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University, who served as an OSHA administrator in the Obama Administration and an Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration.
“We are very proud of Dr. Jim and all of our public health experts and frontline warriors who are fighting for us and saving lives every day,” Nez said. I am looking forward to supporting Dr. Jim’s role with the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Advisory Board and I am optimistic that the Biden-Harris transition team will continue to consider more members of the Navajo Nation for cabinet and high-level appointments as they assemble their administration.”
