Tijuana, June 12. Former Health Secretary and founder of Mexico's Seguro Popular (Popular Insurance) program, Julio Frenk Mora, will be named president of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), becoming the first Latin American to hold that position, the California institution's Board of Regents announced.
He will be the campus's seventh president, starting January 1 of next year, UCLA said in a press release posted on its official website, highlighting that Julio Frenk is currently president of the University of Miami "and a prominent global health researcher who has held positions in government and academia, both in the United States and Mexico."
The former Secretary of Health during Vicente Fox Quesada's administration from 2000 to 2006, "since 2015, he has led the University of Miami, a private institution with more than 17,000 students. He previously served as dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health," the bulletin stated.
The former Mexican official stated that "at this crucial moment for higher education, returning to the public sector to lead one of the world's top research universities—which includes one of the 10 largest academic health systems—is an exciting opportunity and a great honor for me."
As part of Frenk Mora's career, the University of California mentioned his status as founding director of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico and called him "a global advocate for public health and education." He was founding director of Mexico's National Institute of Public Health, one of the leading health education and research institutions in the developing world.
Upon learning of his appointment, the national press highlighted that the next president will have to deal with the ongoing situation at UCLA due to student protests over the situation in Gaza.
The former Secretary of Health served as executive director of the World Health Organization, responsible for developing the scientific basis for health policies worldwide, and served as executive vice president of the nonprofit Mexican Health Foundation. He holds a medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a master's degree in Public Health and another in Sociology, and a doctorate in healthcare organization and sociology from the University of Michigan.
