Dr. Felicia Marie Knaul is the associate of the chancellor at UCLA, a distinguished professor of medicine, and a senior advisor to both the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine and the president of UCLA Health, and director of global health of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is internationally recognized for her transformative research in global health, health systems and health economics. Before coming to UCLA, Dr. Knaul served as director of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas and director of the Office of Hemispheric and Global Affairs at the University of Miami, and was a professor at the university’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Knaul previously served as director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. She earned a master’s and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, and her bachelor’s in international development from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Knaul maintains an active presence in Mexico, where she serves as president of Tómatelo a Pecho, the nonprofit she founded. Tómatelo a Pecho originally focused on breast cancer but has now expanded its mandate to include women’s health and health system strengthening. She has published two books chronicling her own cancer journey. Dr. Knaul is an elected member of the Mexican National Academy of Medicine, inducted Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She served as co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief and currently co-chairs two commissions on violence against women and children and cancer and health systems.