Kelvin Choi Named NIMHD’s New Scientific Director

Choi Will Lead Scientific Efforts at NIMHD to Advance Health Disparities Research

BY JOHN CARLO J. COMBISTA, NIMH

Kelvin Choi was named scientific director (SD) of NIMHD in November 2024 after serving as acting SD since March 2023. His appointment follows the retirement of former scientific director Anna Nápoles. Choi leads an intramural research program comprising three branches: The Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch, the Population and Community Health Sciences Branch, and the Epidemiology and Genetics Branch. He also oversees the mentoring and training of trainees and fellows, reflecting NIMHD’s commitment to supporting the next generation of researchers.

Choi has been with NIMHD since it was established as an institute in 2010 through legislation. He is grateful for the opportunity to lead NIMHD with institutional knowledge.

“I have been here [since] shortly after the establishment of the NIMHD DIR, and I hold the institutional knowledge and history of NIMHD, so I want to provide continuity with the programs and projects started by the previous scientific directors and guide NIMHD with its future research directions,” Choi said.

Colleagues across the NIH celebrated Choi’s appointment. “I was thrilled to learn that Dr. Choi was selected as the NIMHD scientific director,” said Laura Koehly, senior investigator in NHGRI’s Social and Behavioral Research Branch. “He has demonstrated his ability to build relationships, mentor and develop members of his team and early career scientists, and inspire innovative science. The future of the NIMHD intramural research program looks bright with Kelvin at the helm.”

The NIMHD Division of Intramural Research examines disparities in individual, clinical, behavioral, and contextual factors that affect health outcomes in populations experiencing health disparities. One project that NIMHD is focusing on is the U.S. Health Disparities Project (PMID: 37544309). “It’s really an important project because this helps us understand how the interactions of sociodemographic factors and geography potentially influence the difference in health outcomes, and we are able to observe that across the country,” Choi said.

Choi is best known for his research on understanding tobacco use disparities in the United States. He also aims to develop and evaluate the impact of tobacco control interventions on reducing tobacco use disparities.

His journey to the NIH began when he moved from Minnesota to join NIMHD as the first Stadtman tenure-track investigator of the institute. Since, he had been promoted to senior investigator and received the NIH Director’s Ruth L. Kirschstein Mentoring Award for his exceptional leadership and mentoring skills.

Choi leads the Tobacco-Related Disparities and Control Lab, which has pioneered research on how cumulative cigarette discount coupon exposure influences the trajectories of cigarette smoking behavior of U.S. adults through a longitudinal analysis, suggesting that prohibiting these coupons could be an important tobacco control strategy (PMID: 37015744). His lab also seeks to understand how people respond to higher prices of tobacco products and found that low socioeconomic status people who smoke were most likely to find ways to reduce the financial cost of smoking—such as switching to cheaper brands or rolling their own cigarettes—after a cigarette tax increase (PMID: 28219975). He also studied how the interaction of different sociodemographic factors, including education, relates to tobacco product use among U.S. adults ( PMID: 36239224).

Choi is grateful to his doctoral mentor, Jean Forster, who introduced him to the field of tobacco health disparities research, and the members of his dissertation committee who influenced the trajectory of his research at NIMHD. He is also grateful to his mentors, Bruce Simons-Morton, scientific emeritus and former chief of the NICHD Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch, and Laura Koehly, who helped him navigate the scientific and administrative side of doing research at the NIH.

“Our goal is to really provide everyone in the United States the opportunity to achieve optimal health outcomes, and our research will help us get there. By working with researchers and the community members, someday we’ll get there,” Choi said.

Outside of work, he spends most of his time attending his daughter’s synchronized ice-skating competitions. He also loves riding his bicycle and recently did a 42-mile bike ride in Maryland. His goal this year is to go 50 miles.

John Carlo Jadormeo Combista is a predoctoral fellow in the NIMH Oligodendroglial Interactions Group under the supervision of Tobias Merson. He is interested in understanding how the brain develops and functions by exploring how patterns of myelination within specific neural circuits emerge. Outside of academia and writing, he is passionate about singing and volunteers his free time to work with vulnerable populations.