From public health policy to higher education: Julio Frenk becomes UCLA chancellor
Julio Frenk poses alongside John Pérez, who was a UC regent at the time of his appointment, for a picture at the UC Board of Regents meeting. (Zimo Li/Photo editor)
By Dylan Winward
January 8, 2025 at 2:40 a.m.
Dr. Julio Frenk has come a long way since being beaten up by his brother.
Frenk reinvented Mexico’s health system, secured one of Harvard University’s largest-ever donations and kept the University of Miami open through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most recently, he took a pay cut to become UCLA’s newest chancellor – the first Latino to hold the position – by the UC Board of Regents in June and stepped into the role Jan. 2. He succeeded Gene Block, who was UCLA’s chancellor from 2007 until June 2024, when Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt took office as interim chancellor.
While Frenk has not sat down for an interview with the Daily Bruin, he said in an emailed statement that he is excited to have arrived.
“It’s a joy to walk around campus – to experience the energy and excitement, to feel the sense of history and learn the traditions, and most all of all, to meet Bruins,” he said in the statement. “I’m looking forward to getting to know the entire Bruin community.”
Early life
Frenk grew up in Mexico City in a household that mixed intellectuality with practicality and art with science.
Frenk’s paternal family immigrated to Mexico from Germany in the 1930s as life became difficult for their Jewish family. Frenk’s father, Silvestre, went on to become a well-known doctor, with a pediatric hospital in Mexico City named after him. His grandmother also had a high-profile career, directing the city’s Museum of Modern Art and inspiring several of his siblings to become artists.
The Frenk family grew up hearing rumors that their ranching grandmother, patrolling on horseback, shot a Mexican revolutionary who came onto their land, said Frenk’s older brother, Carlos Frenk, the Ogden professor of physics at Durham University. He added that his mother’s family had more of a practical emphasis than his father’s, who had more intellectual backgrounds.
“That’s led to a very strange, unique electric atmosphere in the family because we were torn – on the one side, the intellectual side, on the other side, the more practical side,” Carlos Frenk said. “With hindsight, it wasn’t an easy environment in which to live, because there are all these high achievers trying to get on with the things.”
Although Julio Frenk was inspired by his father’s path and qualified as a physician, Carlos Frenk said Julio never took to practicing, instead receiving master’s degrees in public health and sociology and joint doctoral degrees in medical care organization and sociology from the University of Michigan.
After graduating, Julio Frenk worked as a researcher and met Felicia Knaul – a health economist – in 1995. Knaul later married Frenk and will join him in Westwood with their two children.
“So much to be done to participate actively in helping make our world a safer, more peaceful, healthier and happier place for all,” Knaul wrote in October on the social media platform X. “UCLA has done, and will do, so much more.”
Government years
Frenk began his career as a researcher, appointed as executive director of Evidence and Information for Policy at the World Health Organization in 1998. Two years later, then-newly-elected Mexican President Vicente Fox tapped Frenk to be the country’s secretary of health.
As health secretary, Frenk introduced a program called Seguro Popular, which aimed to help the poorest Mexicans avoid impoverishment due to health care bills, said Susan Parker, a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. The program eventually expanded access to health care for 55 million people and reduced the proportion of people without health insurance in Mexico from around 50% to 10%, Parker said.
Salomon Chertorivski Woldenberg, the commissioner of Seguro Popular in the administration that succeeded Fox’s, said Frenk’s experience in academia and public policy was crucial in helping him create the program, making him one of the most important leaders in the history of Mexican public health.
He added that the program passed nearly unanimously, even though Fox’s party had a minority in Mexico’s General Congress.
“Those kinds of programs are not passed very frequently anywhere in the world,” said Gary King, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science director at Harvard. “Getting them passed is very difficult, and he accomplished that.”
King, who was commissioned to do an independent study of its efficacy, said he was given the resources and freedom to critique the program. Frenk’s willingness to accept scrutiny, he added, was unusual for a politician.
“He had an incredibly forward-looking idea that politicians don’t usually do,” he said. “Making themselves vulnerable to being proven completely wrong, putting their career at risk for the truth.”
The Seguro Popular program radically improved health care outcomes for poor people in Mexico, increasing survival rates for children with leukemia by 70%, Chertorivski said. He added that Frenk also did significant work in creating the Federal Committee for Protection from Sanitary Risks – the Mexican equivalent of the United States Food and Drug Administration.
While in office, Frenk also was responsible for the decision to distribute the morning-after pill at health clinics in Mexico, something that drew criticism from a cabinet colleague and Catholic groups in the country.
“He was a leader,” said Chertorivski, a former member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies who ran for mayor of Mexico City last year. “He’s a teacher. He’s an example of principles, of evidence-based public policy and of being very straight and very clear how to act in public service.”
Following his work in Mexico, Frenk twice was shortlisted to become the director-general of WHO but lost both elections.
After leaving office at the end of Fox’s term in 2006, Frenk served as a senior fellow advising the $75 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on health policy.
Frenk in academia
Two years later, Frenk was appointed the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.
Even before starting the job, Frenk spent a fall semester visiting the school once a month, according to 2008 reporting in the Harvard Crimson. Likewise, Frenk has made several visits to UCLA since his appointment, including attending the university’s Latinx Staff and Faculty Association Posada in December.
Drew Faust, Harvard’s president at the time of Frenk’s appointment, said in an emailed statement that Frenk faced the challenges of the Great Recession, which diminished funding for the school. However, she said he rose to the challenge and bridged boundaries between Harvard’s academic divisions.
“From his first day on the job, Julio had to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize and what to cut and how to put the School on firmer financial foundation,” Faust said in the statement. “He consulted widely across the School and the University, articulated a clear sense of mission, and inspired those around him.”
Frenk’s pragmatism and vision ensured the school – now named the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – received what was at the time Harvard’s largest-ever donation, leading to the school’s renaming, said RAND’s Tim McDonald, who was a graduate student at Harvard while Frenk was dean. Under Frenk’s leadership, the school also created its doctoral program in public health, he said.
Frenk always made time as dean for students and staff, McDonald said, adding that Frenk would take him as seriously as he would a Nobel laureate. McDonald also said Frenk was a mentor to him, inspiring him to pursue his doctoral degree.
“Julio was an extraordinary dean – visionary, strategic, innovative, and inspiring,” said Nancy Turnbull, a senior associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health, in an emailed statement. “He was passionate about education and preparing our students to have impact in making the world healthier and more just.”
Frenk’s role was challenging because of how often faculty disagree, King said, but added that UCLA’s future chancellor was adept at gaining consensus and ensuring his subordinates found ways to get along.
“You don’t misbehave with Julio in the room,” King said. “You can make your argument, but you do it in a proper way, and that makes it possible to reach an agreement where it might not have happened otherwise.”
Also notable, McDonald said, was that Frenk never said anything bad about the people around him.
Carlos Frenk said his brother’s conciliatory nature first showed up in childhood as the youngest child.
“I used to beat him up, and he would never hit me back,” Carlos Frenk said.
Julio was teased and had things thrown at him for including girls in their childhood games, his brother said, something frowned upon in their community.
Frenk in Miami
Frenk later left Harvard to become president of the University of Miami in 2015.
Samantha Rodriguez, a staff writer for the student newspaper Miami Hurricane, said Frenk was responsible for commissioning new university facilities, including the Knight Center for Music Innovation and a new cancer treatment center. Frenk also improved the reputation of the Miller School of Medicine and the University’s health system, with its cancer center being designated as a National Cancer Institute.
He fought for Miami’s admission for the first time to the Association of American Universities – a prestigious group of the country’s top research universities, gaining admission in 2023.
Rudy Fernandez, Miami’s executive vice president for university operations and external affairs, said Frenk also personally recruited some of the health system’s key leaders.
Richard Leib, the former chair of the UC Board of Regents, said during a press conference announcing Frenk’s appointment that his experience leading a university health care system was one reason he was brought to UCLA.
Frenk has more experience than other higher education leaders in both policy and academic research, said Michael Touchton, an associate professor of political science at Miami who co-taught a class with Frenk about public health policy.
“Nobody else that I have worked with comes close to that level of policy experience or understanding,” Touchton said. “He can use the experience to effectively inform the students in ways that I can’t and other instructors can’t.”
Frenk balanced improving research at Miami with a focus on student experiences, Touchton said. He added that Frenk made himself accessible, such as when he broke with tradition and invited junior faculty and students to his official Christmas party.
Rodriguez, a television writing and journalism student, said Frenk did not place as much of an emphasis on Miami’s athletics program as some would have liked. However, Frenk participated frequently in campus life in other ways, she said, such as when he triggered a fraternity’s dunk tank for a fundraiser.
“He’s super open, has a sense of humor and is going to laugh among students,” Rodriguez said.
Frenk was in charge of leading Miami through the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping the campus open for in-person learning at a time when many institutions – including UCLA – switched primarily to remote learning.
The university’s strategy during the pandemic gave it an advantage over peer universities, Touchton said, adding that Frenk used his connections to bring the director of the Pan American Health Organization – as well as health ministers from Argentina and Peru – to speak to classes about the pandemic.
“He was the perfect president to have, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic came in,” Rodriguez said. “The university was one of 30% of colleges that were really able to fully function during the time of the pandemic.”
Praise for Frenk wasn’t universal, however.
Some criticized his COVID-19 policies as prioritizing the university’s finances over student safety.
Frenk also drew fire as president of Miami for controversially firing Anthony Varona as dean of the university’s law school in 2021, something he hinted was motivated by poor fundraising at the school. At the time, the law school had been underperforming in bar examination pass rates, Fernandez said, who was also Frenk’s chief of staff at Miami.
Frenk did not consult faculty on the decision – a process outlined in University of Miami policy – and did not provide a detailed reason for firing Varona, according to the Miami Herald. The University of Miami Faculty Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling for Varona’s reinstatement, a vice dean resigned in solidarity and members of the Miami community questioned whether the firing was motivated by homophobia, the Herald reported.
Varona said in a written statement that he was proud of what he was able to achieve while dean, including fundraising for the school.
“Twenty-one months into my deanship I was informed by President Frenk that the University wanted to pursue a different vision for the law school, and so my deanship ended two months later,” he said in the statement.
Frenk later named Varona dean emeritus, for which Varona said he was grateful.
Frenk later named Varona dean emeritus, for which Varona said he was grateful.
Critics also complained about the way he handled campus events and for the way he left Miami.
In an editorial published in the Miami Hurricane, two columnists said they believed Frenk did not have a strong campus presence, particularly in the way he addressed controversial incidents.
Frenk, whose June appointment came less than two days after a third pro-Palestine encampment on UCLA’s campus, said in a press conference that universities must balance freedom of expression with public safety.
“We must now renew our commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive academic environment that also safeguards free expression.”
“The events of last spring tested the bonds that unite UCLA as a learning community and have created mistrust in many corners of our campus,” Frenk said in a Tuesday campuswide email. “We must now renew our commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive academic environment that also safeguards free expression.”
The Miami Hurricane columnists also said Frenk’s departure came as a surprise to many in the university.
“Frenk’s decision to leave is shocking to many in the UM community as he left without warning and without a solidified president in place for the school’s 100th anniversary year,” the two columnists wrote in the June editorial. “After centering so many of his plans around the centennial year, Frenk should have seen UM and his projects through.”
Frenk also said in his email that the first thing on his agenda is to listen to ideas from people across the university, adding that he will present his vision for UCLA at his inauguration in the spring.
McDonald, who now lives in Santa Monica, said he is excited to see how Frenk will shape UCLA.
“UCLA, as the leading public university in the United States, is going to be at the forefront of restoring public faith in higher education, and in order to do that, you need to have a leader who has tremendous clarity about the role of higher education and can speak positively about the constructive role in society,” he said. “Julio can do that better than anybody.”
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