Jim Yong Kim

About Jim Yong Kim

Dr. Jim Yong Kim is a Korean American physician. He is a Professor of Medicine and Social Medicine and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of the Francois Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, and a former director of the World Health Organization HIV/AIDS department. He founded the nonprofit medical organization Partners in Health along with Dr. Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl. On March 2, 2009, Kim was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College, a position he will formally assume on July 1, 2009.

Dr. Kim has 20 years of experience in improving health in developing countries. He is a founding trustee and the former executive director of Partners In Health, a not-for-profit organization that supports a range of health programs in poor communities in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and the United States.

From 2004 to 2006, Dr. Kim served as Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, a post he was appointed to in March 2004 after serving as advisor to the WHO Director General. Dr. Kim oversaw all of the WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention, and care programs, including the “3x5” initiative designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005.