Monday, March 2, 2009

Jim Yong Kim, New President of Dartmouth College

Jim Yong Kim is the first Asian American to head an Ivy League Institution. Just giving props to a Korean American here :) His background is fascinating:

"... Kim co-founded the non-profit in his second year of medical school after meeting Paul Farmer, later his colleague on the HMS faculty. The two traveled throughout the world in the 1990s to Haiti, Peru, Russia and Malawi, researching global health issues.

As a result of their efforts to develop effective and affordable treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis, Kim and Farmer were later appointed advisors to the director of the World Health Organization.

Leading Partners in Health provided Kim with fundraising experience that will be important in his role as the College’s president, he said.

In 2004, Kim was chosen to direct the WHO’s initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Kim spearheaded the “3 by 5” program, which aimed to treat three million people suffering from HIV/AIDS by 2005.

Kim received a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2003, and was listed as one of the 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2006 for his work on global epidemics..."

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