Paul Farmer, the Maude and Lillian Presley professor of social medicine at HMS, will become the next chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, effective July 1. He will succeed Jim Yong Kim, who is leaving HMS to become president of Dartmouth College.
“There are few who have done more to improve health in developing countries than Paul,” said HMS dean Jeffrey Flier in an announcement to the community. “His scholarship and international work have made him one of the most respected experts in the world on issues of global health. I am delighted that he has agreed to chair this department.”
Farmer received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his PhD in anthropology from Harvard University. While still a medical student, he co-founded Partners In Health, a nonprofit organization committed to providing healthcare to communities in the world’s most remote regions. Today, Partners In Health is rural Haiti’s largest healthcare provider and serves millions of individuals and families in 10 countries, including poorer areas within the United States.
Farmer has written extensively about health and human rights and about the role of social inequalities in the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, and the Heinz Award for the Human Condition. In 1993, Farmer was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in recognition of his work. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was recently elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
