Rifat Atun, the Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, is serving as the school’s Dean for Education and Innovation. The appointment was announced on July 1 by the school’s dean, Andrea Baccarelli, and took effect on Aug. 1. Atun previously served as vice dean for non-degree education and innovation.
The Health Institutes of Türkiye (TÜSEB), on whose international scientific advisory board Atun sits, said he is the first Turkish academic to be appointed a dean at Harvard. The post is one of the school’s senior academic leadership roles; the school as a whole is led by Baccarelli.
AI-enabled learning and new credentials
Atun now provides strategic and operational leadership across the school’s degree and non-degree education, from graduate programs to executive education, short courses and microcredentials. He will lead a comprehensive review of the school’s education enterprise and promote new models of teaching enabled by new technologies and AI, while continuing to oversee the Advanced Learning Academy, its lifelong learning portfolio.
From Famagusta to Harvard
Atun was born into a Turkish Cypriot family in Famagusta. His father, Dr. Ali Atun, a graduate of Istanbul University’s medical school, was chief physician of Famagusta State Hospital from 1960 to 1963. Atun moved to England for school at 14 and studied medicine at the University of London on a Commonwealth scholarship.
From 2006 to 2013 he was professor of international health management at Imperial College London, where he remains a visiting professor. Between 2008 and 2012 he was part of the senior management of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and he has advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the G20 on health system reform.
