NIH’s top IT official, Adele Merritt, has left the agency
Adele Merritt is out as the top IT official at the National Institutes of Health after roughly eight months in the role, again changing up the leadership in the position.
Merritt was first announced as the new chief information officer in December after most recently serving as CIO of the intelligence community. At the time she took on the position, the role hadn’t had a permanent official in roughly two years.
News of her departure and move to the University of Maryland was first reported by Federal News Network and independently confirmed by FedScoop. According to a Department of Health and Human Services official with firsthand knowledge of Merritt’s departure who spoke to FedScoop on the condition of anonymity, her last day was Friday.
Merritt’s departure comes as the Trump administration has sought to reduce the federal workforce and reshape federal agencies, including HHS.
In March, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced plans to cut 10,000 workers from the agency on top of 10,000 who had already left via incentivized resignation and retirement offers from the administration. A recent ProPublica analysis of HHS’s public directory found that the health agency has lost roughly 18% of its workforce since January.
Technology leadership roles weren’t spared in those restructurings. For example, almost the entire leadership team at the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Digital Transformation, including its chief information officer, were impacted by the reduction-in-force, and the department publicly stated plans to consolidate IT leadership.
HHS didn’t respond to a request for comment on Merritt leaving or who is serving as acting CIO.
The University of Maryland declined to comment, but a public university directory confirms that Merritt is now a visiting research scientist at the Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security.
