The current Minister of Health of Mexico, Julio Frenk, will deliver the school’s main Commencement address on Thursday, June 7 in the Kresge courtyard. Frenk is also a former visiting professor at HSPH.

Frenk assumed the post of Minister of Health on December 1, 2000, when Vincente Fox became the new president of Mexico.

Frenk’s research is focused on health systems. He has conducted several studies on the medical profession, including the education and employment of physicians. He has studied the relationship between globalization and health, and has chaired a joint committee of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico and the US Institute of Medicine to analyze the health implications of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In 1993 and 1994, he carried out a comprehensive health policy review in Mexico, analyzing options for health system reforms. At the World Health Organization (WHO), he contributed to the design and application of a comprehensive framework for the assessment of health system performance. As both an executive and researcher, Frenk has focused on the development of better health policies.

In 1993, he was a visiting professor at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

"He has been at the forefront of health care planning and using good epidemiological evidence to develop health care systems," said Richard Cash, lecturer in the Department of Population and International Health, who has known Frenk for more than 10 years. "He is part of a new generation of health planners who are developing innovative approaches to evidence-based health programming at the national and local levels, and he will certainly do this in Mexico."

Frenk was born in Mexico City in 1953. He received his MD degree in 1979 from the National University of Mexico. At the University of Michigan, he obtained three advanced degrees: Master of Public Health (1981), Master of Arts in Sociology (1982), and Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Care Organization and Sociology (1983).

He has written 28 books and monographs.