Jason M. Chernesky, PhD
FECOHP Project Director and Lead Oral HIstorian
Jason is an experienced oral historian whose work explores the history of medicine, public health, child health, health policy, urban history, and environmental history in the United States. He served as a Historian for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he helped manage the FDA History Office’s oral history program and led efforts to document and educate the public about the agency’s evolving role in American public health. Jason was terminated by DOGE on February 14, 2025. Jason officially separated from the FDA in September 2025.
Prior to his work at the FDA, Jason was the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Opioid Research Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His current book project, Forgotten Victims: Pediatric AIDS and the Urban Ecology of Health in the United States, 1950–2015, uncovers the overlooked history of how the HIV/AIDS pandemic impacted children born with the disease and the people who cared for them.
Education:
BA, History, Rutgers University—New Brunswick
MA, History, Rutgers University—Newark
PhD, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania