Felicia Marie Knaul is Director of the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas (UMIA) and Professor at the university’s Miller School of Medicine. Before joining the University of Miami faculty in 2015, she was Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative. She is also a Senior Economist at the Mexican Health Foundation.
Her research is focused on global health; cancer and especially breast cancer in low- and middle-income countries; women and health; health systems and reform; health financing; access to pain control and palliative care; poverty and inequity; gender equity and female labor force participation; and children in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
As a result of her own breast cancer experience, in 2008 Dr. Knaul founded Cáncer de Mama: Tómatelo a Pecho, a Mexico-based non-profit that promotes research, advocacy, awareness, and early detection in Latin America.
Dr. Knaul has produced more than 190 academic and policy publications, authored and lead-edited academic books, and serves on the advisory board or editorial board of several medical and health care publishers. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Lancet Commission on Global access to Palliative Care and Pain Control. She was also a member of the Lancet Commission on Women and Health and a leading co-author of its 2015 report. In 2013-2014 she participated in the Lancet Series Universal Health Coverage in Latin America.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Toronto and master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Harvard University.