Dr. Julio Frenk became dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) on January 1, 2009. Dr. Frenk holds an MD from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and an MPH, MA (Sociology) and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Frenk was the founding director of the Center for Public Health Research in Mexico's Ministry of Health from 1984 to 1987. Then from 1987 to 1992, he was the founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, guiding its emergence as one of the developing world's most respected and innovative centers of education and research in public health.

At HSPH, he was a Visiting Professor from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2007 to 2008. He served from 1995 to 1998 as Executive Vice President of the Mexican Health Foundation and Director of its Center for Health and Economy. From 1998 to 2000, he served as Executive Director of Evidence and Information for Policy at WHO.

As Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, Dr. Frenk pursued an ambitious agenda to reform the nation's health system, with an emphasis on redressing social inequality and establishing a program of comprehensive national health insurance, known as Seguro Popular. After completing his term, Dr. Frenk served as a senior fellow in the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and as President of the Carso Health Institute in Mexico City. He is currently chair of the board of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

A member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico, he has served on the editorial boards of more than a dozen publications, and has been associated with the faculties of the University of Michigan and several universities in Mexico.