Jim Yong Kim
After three years at WHO, Kim returned to Harvard earlier this year. He holds a professorship at Harvard Medical School and is Chair of the HMS Department of Social Medicine. Additionally, he is chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
"Jim spearheaded the program that set a global goal on AIDS treatment for the first time in history [the "3x5" program to treat 3 million people in 5 years] and held the world accountable for making access to treatment available in the poorest countries," said Dean Barry Bloom. "While there was much controversy surrounding it, the concrete nature of the goals permanently changed the effectiveness and urgency of the global AIDS response. We look forward to Jim's redoubled efforts to tackle the global challenge of learning how to implement those goals and make a difference in stemming the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
The FXB Center at Harvard School of Public Health was founded in 1993 with the support of Albina du Boisrouvray who had suggested a Center on Health and Human Rights be created as a platform for and to amplify the work of the late Dr. Jonathan Mann.
Kim stressed that, under his leadership, the FXB Center will continue to ensure that health and human rights as a concept and a movement influence efforts in both global health and human development. HIV/AIDS will be a central focus of the Center, especially efforts to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care. The most significant new programs in the Center, however, will focus on the health of children.
Kim received his undergraduate degree from Brown University, his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and his PhD from Harvard University in anthropology. He was executive director and a founding trustee of Partners In Health, an international not-for-profit organization, where he and HMS Professor Paul Farmer blazed a new trail in thinking regarding treatment and health care for people with tuberculosis, and especially drug-resistant TB, and HIV in poor countries. A member of the Institute of Medicine, Kim also received a MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2003. In 2006, he was selected as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people.
Copyright, 2009, President and Fellows of Harvard College
