The Trump administration has selected Susan Monarez, the CDC’s acting director, as its new nominee to run the agency, two people in the Trump administration told POLITICO on Monday.

The decision comes after Monarez beat at least two other potential candidates, former GOP Rep. Michael Burgess and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.

Prior to joining the CDC earlier this year, Monarez had served as the deputy director for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health since January 2023. She is seen in the public health sphere as a more moderate pick than Dr. Dave Weldon, the administration’s first nominee, whose past comments on vaccines and autism helped tank his nomination hours before his hearing was scheduled to begin.

Trump officials had prioritized quickly settling on a new nominee in the wake of Weldon’s withdrawal, which represented an embarrassing setback during an otherwise successful run of high-level confirmations. Monarez was initially installed as acting director shortly after President Donald Trump took office, a move that broke from past practice of appointing career CDC officials to the interim post.

CBS News first reported Monarez’s selection.

CDC referred all questions to the White House, which declined to comment.

As the CDC attempts to mitigate the avian flu outbreak, rapidly spreading measles outbreak and increasing vaccine hesitancy, Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration stand poised to overhaul the agency.

“The director of the CDC is among the most important health positions in the world,” Dr. Rich Besser, a former acting director of the agency and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told POLITICO.

Monarez, before serving as the CDC’s acting head, was a leader in the artificial intelligence and health technology space and has served at the White House in the Office of Science and Technology Policy and on the National Security Council.