Jerry Sheehan Appointed Deputy Director of the National Library of Medicine

July 31, 2017

Jerry Sheehan has been named the new NLM Deputy Director effective today, July 31, 2017. The appointment was announced by Library Director Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD. The world’s largest biomedical library, NLM serves as a national and international resource of biomedical and genomic data for scientists, health professionals, academia, and the public.

“I have personally known Jerry for over 15 years and find in him creativity, wise counsel, and clear thinking. Upon my arrival to NLM, I was delighted to reconnect with him and to work together on integrating data science and open science into the NLM portfolio,” said Dr. Brennan in announcing the appointment.

During his more than 10 years as the Assistant Director for Policy Development at NLM, Sheehan has made major contributions to the development and implementation of NIH, HHS, and US government-wide policy related to open science, public access to government-funded information, clinical trials registration, and electronic health records. He has built effective relationships with key NLM partners, including health sciences librarians and informatics researchers. From September 2015 to January 2017, Sheehan was detailed to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as Assistant Director for Scientific Data and Information, where he worked to develop public access policies at all Federal science agencies.  

Prior to joining NLM, Jerry Sheehan served for six years as Principal Administrator/Senior Economist in the Science & Technology Policy Division of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, where he led an international team of researchers and policy makers on science and innovation policy, data science, and open science.  At the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, he served as study director on influential reports sponsored by NLM: one on the privacy and security of electronic health data and another on health applications of the Internet. Sheehan holds both a master’s degree in technology and policy and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

In his role as NLM Deputy Director, Sheehan will share responsibility with the Director for overall program development, program evaluation, policy formulation, direction and coordination of all Library activities. In addition, he will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Library and, in the absence of the Director, will assume full responsibility for all functions performed by the National Library of Medicine.

Since its founding in 1836, the National Library of Medicine https://www.nlm.nih.gov has played a pivotal role in translating biomedical research into practice and is a leader in information innovation. NLM is the world's largest medical library, and millions of scientists, health professionals and the public around the world use NLM services every day.

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