Dr. Julio Frenk became UCLA’s seventh chancellor on January 1, 2025. He is also a distinguished professor in the UCLA Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Prior to joining UCLA, he served as president of the University of Miami from 2015 to 2024, where he was also a tenured faculty member. From 2009 to 2015 he was the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint appointment with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is the first Latino to lead these institutions of higher education.
From 2000 to 2006, Frenk served as the federal secretary of health of Mexico. There, he pursued an ambitious agenda to reform the nation’s health system and introduced a program of comprehensive universal coverage, known as Seguro Popular, which expanded access to health care for more than 55 million previously uninsured persons.
Chancellor Frenk holds a medical degree from the National University of Mexico, as well as a master of public health and a joint Ph.D. in medical care organization and in sociology from the University of Michigan. He has received honorary degrees from 14 universities in the United States, Canada, Europe and Mexico.
Frenk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico and El Colegio Nacional (the most prestigious learned society of scientists, intellectuals and artists in Mexico). He has received numerous awards, including the Clinton Global Citizen Award for changing the way practitioners and policy makers across the world think about health, the Bouchet Medal for Outstanding Leadership presented by Yale University for promoting diversity in graduate education, and the Welch-Rose Award for Distinguished Service from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. In 2024, he was named one of TIME magazine’s top Latino leaders for his contributions to public health and higher education.