Charles N. Rotimi PhD, MS, MPH

Dr. Rotimi was appointed scientific director of NHGRI in 2021. He received his undergraduate education in biochemistry from the University of Benin in Nigeria before immigrating to the United States for further studies. He started his education in the United States at the University of Mississippi, where he obtained a master's degree in health care administration. He obtained a second master's degree and a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Prior to coming to the NIH, Dr. Rotimi was the director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University.

Dr. Rotimi came to the NIH in 2008 to found the trans-institute Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health, with the mission of advancing research into the role of culture, lifestyle, and genomics in disease etiology, health disparities, and variable drug response. His lab develops genetic epidemiology models and conducts epidemiologic studies that explore the patterns and determinants of common complex diseases in human populations with particular emphasis on populations of the African Diaspora. His team published the first genome-wide scan for hypertension and blood pressure in African Americans and for type-2 diabetes in West Africans. His lab contributes to the global understanding of human genetic variation by actively participating in the development of international genomic resources including the HapMap, the 1,000 Genome, and the African Genome Variation Project. He is on the Executive and Scientific Committee for the International Federation of Human Genetics Societies and was elected to the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) Council. He is the founding and past president of the African Society of Human Genetics (AfSHG).

He successfully led the establishment of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative with a $76 million commitment from the NIH and Wellcome Trust. H3Africa created a support network of labs that conduct leading-edge research into the genetic and environmental determinants of diseases in Africans. He is on the editorial board of Public Health Genomics, Genome Medicine, Clinical Genetics, and Journal of Applied and Translational Genomics. He is on the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative Board. He was awarded an honorary professorship at the prestigious University of Cape Town, South Africa. He became the Chief of the Metabolic, Cardiovascular, and Inflammatory Disease Genomics Branch in 2014 and stepped down in 2021.