The Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP) Office of Science (OS) will have a returning director, sources have confirmed. Matthew Farrelly, who first joined the CTP as director of the OS in 2023 and was then reassigned in early 2025 to another role within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) due to a restructuring, is returning to lead the OS once again.

Farrelly’s name is listed as director of the OS on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s CTP’s leadership list on the agency’s website; however, it’s unclear if his name was ever removed in the first place, as no formal position at HHS was ever publicly announced. Farrelly also never changed his LinkedIn page from serving as the “present” OS director.

Farrelly replaced Matt Holman, who left the position in 2022 to join Philip Morris International. Holman was hired in 2017 and succeeded David Ashley.

No formal announcement from CTP has been made. Farrelly comes from RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, where he served as the chief scientist and director of the Center for Health Analytics, Media, and Policy.

Farrelly has worked for more than 25 years in the tobacco and nicotine science fields and is an internationally recognized expert with proven leadership and organizational management skills.

“He has led or been involved with numerous scientific endeavors related to tobacco control policies and regulatory approaches, including those related to graphic health warning labels, excise taxes, smoke-free policies, quit lines, state tobacco control programs, retail advertising and flavored tobacco products,” the FDA said when Farrelly first joined CTP. “He has also extensively researched the influence of mass reach health campaigns, including FDA’s The Real Cost.”

Farrelly has co-authored more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed scientific literature. He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Maryland at College Park and a bachelor’s degree in economics and French from Indiana University.