Harvard University, Cambridge, USA and Tomátelo a Pecho AC Fundación Mexicana para la Salud, Mexico
Felicia Marie Knaul is Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative. She is also Chair of the Pan American Health Organization Task Force on Universal Health Coverage; Honorary Research Professor, National Institute of Public Health of Mexico; and, Senior Economist, Mexican Health Foundation.
Her research focuses on global health, global cancer issues and especially breast cancer, women and health, health systems and reform, health financing, and access to pain control and palliative care.
She has over 160 publications, including governmental reports. In 2012, she led a Lancet publication that reviewed Mexico’s health system reform. She is a member of the Lancet Commission on Women and Health, Global Health Editor for The Oncologist; and advisory board member of Lancet Global Health. She has coordinated research series for The Lancet and the WHO Bulletin.
As a result of her breast cancer experience, Dr. Knaul founded Cáncer de Mama: Tómatelo a Pecho a non-profit agency that promotes research, advocacy and capacity building in Latin America. She lectures extensively on the global challenge of breast cancer, both as patient-advocate and researcher. Tómatelo a Pecho (Grupo Santillana, 2009) and Beauty without the Breast (Harvard University Press 2013) recount her personal experience. Her work has been featured in leading publications including Science.
Dr. Knaul created and coordinates several research and advocacy networks. She co-founded the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in 2009 and is lead author of Closing the Cancer Divide (2012). She coordinates the Global Network for Health Equity bringing together researchers from Latin America, Asia and Africa.
She has held senior government positions in Mexico’s Ministries of Education and Social Development, and in Colombia’s Planning Department. Dr. Knaul serves on several boards including the EAT Forum, the Union for International Cancer Control, and the Jalisco Cancer Institute. In 2013, she was named one of Mexico’s most influential women.
Dr. Knaul is Canadian and British. A permanent resident of Mexico, she divides her time between Cuernavaca and Sudbury, MA.