MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG is a Johns Hopkins alumnus, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, World Health Organization Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, and former New York City mayor.
He is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who served as mayor of New York City from 2002-2013 after leading the company he started in 1981 for 20 years. Since leaving City Hall, he has resumed leadership of Bloomberg LP.
Bloomberg was elected mayor less than two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Under his leadership, the city rebounded faster and stronger than expected on issues ranging from education to health to economic development.
A lifelong philanthropist, Bloomberg founded Bloomberg Philanthropies, which focuses on five main areas: public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation. He also leads a number of bi-partisan coalitions on urgent issues, including climate change, illegal guns, immigration reform, and infrastructure investment. In January 2013, he made the $350 million gift that established the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships and provided undergraduate financial aid.
Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.
Held by Eliana Perrin
ELIANA PERRIN is a nationally-recognized leader in patient-oriented primary care, childhood obesity, and health disparities research. Perrin has developed, tested, and disseminated many tools to help pediatricians prevent and treat obesity. Perrin’s research focuses on what pediatricians can do during well-child checks to support parents in helping children grow up healthy, and her groundbreaking work has had a broad impact on an epidemic that affects one in three children in the United States.
Perrin has spanned qualitative and quantitative methods and topics—from inflammatory markers in neonates to developing and testing color-coded growth charts to the influence of messages in children’s movies—to understand the many facets of childhood obesity and health correlates, particularly focusing on disadvantaged communities. Perrin founded the Duke Center for Childhood Obesity Research and, with colleagues, created, led, and researched “Greenlight,” a low-literacy primary care program to prevent obesity in young children, starting at infancy and focusing on dietary, physical activity, and screen time advice. Now, Perrin and colleagues are expanding on this work by conducting a comparative effectiveness trial that innovates with asynchronous care elements like text messaging goals.
Perrin joined Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in 2021 from Duke University.
MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG is a Johns Hopkins alumnus, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, World Health Organization Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, and former New York City mayor.