Julio Frenk, a public health expert and president of the University of Miami, has been named the next president of the University of California (UCLA), as announced by the University of California Board of Regents.

Frenk will be the first Latino to lead the university, where 21 percent of undergraduates and 13 percent of graduate students are Latino/Hispanic. Frenk described himself as a “boundary spanner and a bridge” and stressed the importance of diversity in strengthening higher education institutions. Born in Mexico, Frenk earned a medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was Mexico's secretary of health, where he promoted significant reforms to the public health system, including the implementation of universal health care and the expansion of access to contraception and family planning.

He has also served in leadership positions at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Frenk assumed the presidency of the University of Miami in 2015, being the first Latino to hold that position. In an interview after his appointment, Frenk emphasized his commitment to diversity and inclusion, citing the influence of his own experience as the son of a Jew who fled persecution in Nazi Germany and found shelter in Mexico.

The University of Miami has announced that Frenk will take a sabbatical as he prepares to take up his new position. Joe Echevarria, the current executive director and also a Hispanic, will be the university's interim president. Frenk will take over at UCLA in January, succeeding Gene Block, and will be temporarily replaced by Darnell Hunt as acting chancellor following Block's resignation in July, according to the NBC report.

Block praised Frenk as an exceptional thinker, a skilled administrator, and a brilliant scholar. UCLA recently gained national prominence after protests against the Israeli-Hamas war turned violent, resulting in hundreds of arrests. More arrests have taken place this week due to the police vacating a campground on campus.