Jay J. Schnitzer is director of the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research and president of Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.
He previously served as senior vice president, corporate chief engineer and chief medical officer at The MITRE Corporation. As an M.D. board-certified pediatric surgeon, Dr. Schnitzer led early studies of pulmonary developmental anomalies.
With a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, coupled with field experience in international and domestic disaster medical response, he co-led a national effort of over 1,000 private sector organizations to discover solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, building on his experience leading the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Prior experience
As chief medical officer, he led MITRE’s corporate and national initiatives in health and biological sciences. He created and directed two signature research initiatives: the Oncology–Standard Health Record moonshot, leveraging electronic clinical data to reduce risk, cost and length of time required for clinical trial implementation and the Quantum Information Science moonshot to create major advances in quantum computing, sensing and communications.
Dr. Schnitzer co-led an assessment of NOAA scientific integrity policies and procedures as applied to Karl T, et al. Science, 2015: Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus.
He co-chaired the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition, which delivered products that improved Covid outcomes in four areas: the COVID-19 supply chain, social policies, discovering novel data-driven clinical insights for therapeutics and using technology to successfully harness the power of a large, pro-bono consortium of over 1,000 private sector organizations.
As corporate chief engineer, Dr. Schnitzer ensured MITRE-wide technical quality and mission impact, delivering rigor to the network of chief engineers, and supported corporate strategy development and execution.
As chief technical officer, he directed MITRE’s independent internal research and development program, transferring innovations to industry.
More career highlights
Overseeing research and development at DARPA
Before joining MITRE, Dr. Schnitzer was director of the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he oversaw research and development across multiple domains, from life sciences and biomedical research to quantum physics.
Medical and clinical leadership at Boston Scientific
Previously, Dr. Schnitzer led medical and clinical teams as chief medical officer at Boston Scientific Corporation. He provided medical and clinical oversight of the entire product lifecycle, including clinical trials for medical devices.
He supported the successful sale of a $1 billion neurovascular division, oversaw and led the design and successful initiation of two new pre-market neuromodulation medical device clinical trials and championed successful acquisition and integration of a new business opportunity for first-ever medical device therapy for asthma.
In the clinic and at the bench
Earlier, Dr. Schnitzer held joint staff appointments as an attending pediatric surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Burns Hospital and was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
His NIH-funded research focused on the developmental molecular biology of abnormal lung growth and maturation in a mechanistic search for novel prenatal therapeutics for congenital diaphragmatic hernia. He also studied the interface between healthcare simulation, medical disaster preparedness and mass casualty response—a combination of his engineering background coupled with field experience in international and disaster medicine.
At Mass General, he was the site miner for the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology.
He supervised a six-member medical response team at Ground Zero for two weeks following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, treating FDNY, NYPD and iron workers. Subsequently, he led a mobile operating room surgical team for U.S. response to the Bam, Iran earthquake in December 2003.
In the laboratory, he demonstrated efficacy of prenatal glucocorticoid therapy to improve lung maturation in animal models of congenital diaphragmatic hernia.
Other credentials
- Board certification (and recertification) in general surgery and pediatric surgery.
- Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Provider and instructor in Advanced Trauma Life Support, Advanced Burn Life Support, and Advanced Trauma Operative Management; and provider in Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support.
- Memberships in national and international societies include, among others, the American Surgical Association, Association for Academic Surgery, American Pediatric Surgical Association, Surgical Biology Club I, Boston Surgical Society, American Burn Association, New England Surgical Society, and the British Association of Pediatric Surgeons.
Education and honors
Dr. Schnitzer was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and attended public schools in Springfield and Longmeadow, graduating from Longmeadow High School as class valedictorian and an Eagle Scout.
In 1973, he graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA with a B.S. in chemical engineering (high distinction).
In 1983 he received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Schnitzer completed his residency training program in general surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, one year performing trauma surgery in the Gaza Strip, and a fellowship in pediatric surgery at Children’s Hospital, Boston.
His awards and honors include:
- The WPI Salisbury Prize Award in chemical engineering
- The Von L. Meyer and Sydney Farber Awards from Children’s Hospital Boston
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security FEMA Under Secretary’s Award
- The Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Achievement
- The MITRE President’s Award
- The WashingtonExec Pinnacle Awards 2020 Healthcare Industry Executive of the Year
- The 2023 FCW Fed100 Award
- The Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement from WPI
He is married to Sara Roy, and they live in Boston with their daughters Annie and Jess.
