A Harvard-trained health economist, Dr. Knaul has been engaged in public health research, social development and advocacy throughout her career in positions with governments, nonprofit organizations and universities.

UCLA International Institute, May 19, 2025 —  Dr. Felicia Marie Knaul, associate of the chancellor and distinguished professor of medicine at UCLA, will be the keynote speaker at the commencement ceremony of UCLA International Institute on June 14, 2025. The ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m. in Royce Hall.

Dr. Knaul, a Harvard-trained health economist, also serves as senior advisor to the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine and the president of UCLA Health.

Prior to relocating to UCLA with her partner, Chancellor Julio Frenk, Dr. Knaul spent close to a decade as director of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas at the University of Miami, where she was also professor in the Miller School of Medicine.

Earlier, she was associate professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative for seven years. Prior to that, she held senior leadership positions in the governments of Mexico and Colombia. In Mexico, she continues to serve as a researcher at the Mexican Health Foundation and Faculty of Excellence at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Over the course of her career, Dr. Knaul has authored over 350 academic publications, including journal articles, book chapters and books. She has also led several global, multi-disciplinary research networks and initiatives, including The Global Task Force on Expanding Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries and The Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief for the leading medical journal, The Lancet.* She currently co-chairs two Lancet Commissions, one on cancer and health systems, and the other on violence against women and children.

The life of an engaged researcher-practitioner

Dr. Knaul did her undergraduate education in international development studies and economics at the University of Toronto and, as part of her field work, went to Guatemala to work with street children. That project would later pave the way toward her doctoral research at Harvard University on street and working children in Bogotá, Colombia.

Her long record of working with governments on social development and public health began while she was undertaking her dissertation research, when she was invited to become an advisor to the ministries of planning and health of Colombia on what she described as one of the world’s most encompassing national health reforms.

It was through that work that she met Chancellor Frenk. When he became minister of health under Mexican President Vicente Fox [2000–2006], she applied that experience working alongside him in the design and financial planning of Seguro Popular — a national insurance program that grew to cover over 50 million people — and in implementing transformational health reform.

She also held senior leadership positions in the Fox administration, serving first in the Ministry of Social Development and then in the Ministry of Public Education. One of her many responsibilities, and the project about which she says she is most proud, was building a program that put schools into every tertiary hospital in Mexico.

The program, Sigamos Aprendiendo en el Hospital, has stood the test of time and continues to guarantee the right of continued education to children with serious long-term illness, and to their families. “The program enables kids who are hospitalized over long periods to stay in school. Before that, they often had to fall behind or drop out,” she explained. “The program has been in place for almost 20 years and remains firmly rooted in Mexico’s education and health systems.

“I worked with many children living through cancer treatment who shared that going to school gave them hope and purpose and new ways to fight for health. I also met children who were terminal whose parents received their high school diplomas after they died. These stories inspired many other children to stay in school.”

Dr. Knaul herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in a small health clinic in Mexico in 2007. Of note, the medicine that saved her life, herceptin, was developed based on clinical research conducted at UCLA.

In 2008, Dr. Knaul founded Tómatelo a Pecho, a nongovernmental organization in Mexico to help low-income women throughout Latin America become aware of breast health, promote early detection of breast cancer and improve access to treatment and palliate suffering.

“I decided to share my journey publicly and chose to get treatment in Mexico to demonstrate that women did not have to leave the country to access high-quality care,” she said. “The same year, the Seguro Popular health insurance program added breast cancer, providing financial protection to all women diagnosed with the disease who lacked resources to pay for their care.”

Tómatelo a Pecho, which Dr. Knaul continues to lead as president, has since expanded its focus to include many issues that are key to women’s health, including gender-based violence and violence against children. Her work links advocacy to evidence to strengthen policies and programs in all areas of health and health care and provides unique opportunities to implement and take action on the results of her research.

A natural partner of the International Institute

“I thought I would be a physician… but I became an economist,” said Dr. Knaul when visiting the institute during an April faculty meeting chaired by Vice Provost Cindy Fan.

“I came by my academic position by a circuitous route. Mostly I was doing work on advocacy and policy with governments and nongovernmental organizations and eventually landed in academia. But it was not a standard route by any means — I chose a different path to link advocacy, policy and research.”

“One of the lynchpins in convincing me to come to UCLA was the huge opportunities to collaborate with the International Institute,” she recounted. “It’s like a candy store of academic excellence in so many different spheres of creating global learning and knowledge.”

Dr. Knaul also shared why she has found UCLA to be such a connective space for research. “Of the many places in which I have had the honor to work and serve, UCLA is the most collaborative; and the combination of collaboration with excellence and commitment to service is a recipe for effective change.”

Among her current priorities, she said, is bringing the ongoing Lancet Commissions that she is leading to successful publication in spring 2026. She then looks forward to working on their policy applications with many partners at UCLA, including the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and spearheading much of the implementation through collaboration with the International Institute.

Another priority is to create a cross-disciplinary, UCLA-wide, institute dedicated to promoting human, social and economic prospering. The foundations of the new “PROSPER” institute are just being developed, but one focus will be on the social determinants and systemic drivers of health and well-being.

“We believe strongly that the social determinants of health and well-being are key for understanding human health and improving the health of our world,” she noted.

Among the suggestions Dr. Knaul had for the International Institute and transnational, collaborative research in general at UCLA, were to raise awareness of the huge platform within Mexico of the UC Alianza MX initiative and its Mexico City office, Casa de California. In addition, she focused on building linkages with new research partners worldwide to help mitigate the current loss of federal research support.

An exciting outcome of the meeting came when Dr. Knaul expressed an interest in being a guest lecturer in the Introduction to Global Health course offered by the International Institute’s global health minor. Dr. Knaul recounted that she, Chancellor Frenk and a political scientist peer had team taught a similar course at the University of Miami.

“I would love to teach that again and to participate in coursework at the International Institute,” she said. The institute faculty member currently teaching the UCLA course, Uptal Sandesara, M.D., Ph.D., said he would definitely take her up on her offer.

*One of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, The Lancet regularly creates commissions of experts on pressing issues of science, medicine and global health that provide analysis and recommendations on health policy and/or practice.

Published: Monday, May 19, 2025