Welcome Dean Michelle Williams

At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, our mission is to advance global health through learning, research, discovery, and communication.

The School brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of public health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we collaborate to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives — not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Currently, our dedication to basic science is endangered by a struggling economy and political gridlock, which have made federal funding for research increasingly competitive and scarce.

It is a privilege to lead the School with which I have had a relationship for 30 years — first as a student, then as an alumna, faculty member, and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology. Since taking office on July 1, 2016, I have been impressed and delighted to learn about the efforts of the Sabri Ülker family, and their generous support of the Sabri Ülker Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research. The work of the Center plays a critical role in our understanding of the molecular basis of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related disorders, and the discoveries made there will lead to improved health for people around the world. Thanks to the Ülker family’s unparalleled generosity, a new generation of scientists will receive world-class training, gain access to state-of-the-art equipment, and be prepared to make important discoveries about one of the most pressing threats to global health: metabolic disease. I am grateful to the Ülker family for supporting research that is critical to the central mission of the Harvard Chan School, and I am excited to be able to oversee this decade of discovery.

Sincerely,