Dr Michael C. Lu, MD, MS, MPH has been the Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley since 2019. Prior to coming to Berkeley, Dr Lu served as the Director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau under the Obama Administration. During his tenure, he transformed key federal programmes in maternal and child health, and launched major initiatives to reduce maternal, infant, and child mortality. For his leadership, he was awarded the prestigious U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Hubert H. Humphrey for Service to America Award in 2013.
Prior to his public service, Dr Lu was a professor of obstetrics-gynaecology and public health at UCLA, where he published more than 100 papers and book chapters, and mentored a generation of physicians and public-health scholars. He co-directed the residency programme in obstetrics and gynaecology and a training grant in maternal and child health, and received several prestigious awards for his teaching. As a practising obstetrician for nearly two decades, he has attended more than 1,000 births and has been repeatedly named among the Best Doctors in America based on nationwide surveys of physicians. In 2025, Dr Lu was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, which cited his work for "fundamentally transforming our understanding of the causes and prevention of maternal and child health disparities through his life-course perspective on women’s health, and catalysing a paradigm shift in research, practice, and policy”.
Dr Lu received his bachelor’s degrees in political science and human biology from Stanford University, master’s degrees in health and medical sciences and public health from UC Berkeley, medical degree from UC San Francisco, and residency training in obstetrics and gynaecology from UC Irvine.
Despite decades of remarkable medical breakthroughs, population health outcomes have not substantially improved. Chronic diseases continue to rise, and health inequities persist in the United States and around the world. Today, public health stands at a crossroads: facing not only existential threats such as climate change, future pandemics, and widening social and economic inequality, but also unprecedented challenges of disinformation, disinvestment, and political polarisation. Yet this moment also presents extraordinary opportunities to save lives and improve population health.
How must the field respond? What must we do differently in the decade ahead?
In this keynote, Dr Michael Lu, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, draws on his experience leading both academic and governmental public health to explore how the field must adapt—and innovate—in a rapidly changing world. He argues that meeting the challenges ahead will require not only rebuilding the foundations of public health, but also reimagining its future: transforming how we do research, how we educate, and how we serve communities, in order to advance health equity and social justice for all.
