Benjamin Apelberg, Ph.D., serves as Acting Director of the Office of Science and the Deputy Director for Regulatory Science in the Office of Science at FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). As the Acting Director of the Office of Science since November 2022, Dr. Apelberg is responsible for overseeing the Office that develops, evaluates, and synthesizes the science related to tobacco products, their use, and the resulting morbidity and mortality so that regulatory decisions will have the greatest impact on improving public health. As Deputy Director for Regulatory Science in the Office of Science, he oversees the Division of Population Health Science, Division of Individual Health Science, and the Division of Research and Knowledge Integration. 

Prior to serving as Acting Director and Deputy Director, Dr. Apelberg was the Director of the Division of Population Health Science, where he led a division of about 100 staff who conduct population health research and evaluation to inform the Center’s regulatory activities; evaluate scientific submissions from industry in the form of premarket applications, meeting requests, and postmarket reports; and synthesize scientific evidence to inform policy development. He previously served as the scientific lead for the MRTPA program and as Technical Project Lead for the first two sets of MRTPAs to be authorized by FDA. These authorizations involved precedent-setting decisions regarding the evaluation and interpretation of multiple lines of evidence and the operationalization of relevant statutory requirements. 

Prior to becoming division director, Dr. Apelberg served as the first Epidemiology Branch Chief in the Office of Science and began his career at FDA in 2010 in CTP’s Office of Policy. Prior to joining FDA, he was a faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) and at the school’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control. 

Dr. Apelberg received a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins and B.S. in Biology from Georgia Tech.

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