President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 5/17/10

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individual to a key administration post:

• Helen Reed-Rowe, Ambassador to the Republic of Palau, Department of State

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint Harold Varmus to serve as Director of the National Cancer Institute. His bio is below.

President Obama said, “I am grateful that these talented and dedicated individuals will be filling these important roles in my administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individual to a key administration post:

Helen Reed-Rowe, Nominee for Ambassador to the Republic of Palau, Department of State
Helen Reed-Rowe is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Office of Performance Evaluation in the Department of State.  She previously served as the Foreign Affairs Advisor from the Department of State to the Avian Influenza Action Group. Washington assignments also include Post Management Officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; Management Officer in Bureau of European Affairs; Desk Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs; and an Examiner on the Board of Examiners in the Bureau of Human Resources.  Overseas posts include Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands; Supervisory General Services Officer in Jamaica; Regional Personnel Officer in Ecuador; and Personnel Officer in Niger.  Ms. Reed-Rowe earned an M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and a B.A. from the University of Maryland.

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the following individual to a key administration post:

Harold Varmus, Appointee for Director, National Cancer Institute
Harold Varmus, a former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for studies of the genetic basis of cancer, and co-chair of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), has served as the President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City since January 2000. His research career began as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service at the NIH and as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).   He then served as a member of the UCSF medical faculty for over twenty years, conducting scientific work on cancer genes and retroviruses.  In 1993, President Clinton appointed Varmus to become Director of the NIH, where he guided construction of a new clinical center, strengthened the intramural research program, recruited outstanding leaders, and helped to initiate a doubling of the NIH budget.   At MSKCC, Varmus has united clinical care and laboratory activities, expanded faculty and facilities, developed inter-institutional research programs, led a two billion dollar capital campaign, and started a new graduate school in cancer biology.    He recently co-chaired an Institute of Medicine report on The U.S. Commitment to Global Health; is a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Public Library of Science, a publisher of open access journals; and chairs the Global Health Advisory Committee at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  He has been a member of the US National Academy of Sciences since 1984 and of the Institute of Medicine since 1991, and he has received the National Medal of Science and the Vannevar Bush Award.  Varmus majored in English Literature at Amherst College, earned a master's degree in English at Harvard University, received his medical degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was trained in internal medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.