Thomas J. Bollyky Named Council on Foreign Relations’ Inaugural Bloomberg Chair in Global Health

Thomas J. Bollyky will be the first holder of the Bloomberg endowed Chair in Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), President Michael Froman announced. 

Bloomberg Philanthropies has given $5 million to establish the Chair in Global Health to honor former CFR President Richard Haass’s twenty years of leadership and to expand on Bloomberg Philanthropies’ and CFR’s longstanding partnership to raise awareness of the importance of addressing noncommunicable diseases through research, dissemination, and convenings.

“We are deeply grateful to Bloomberg Philanthropies for this generous gift to establish CFR’s first endowed chair in global health. I am pleased that it honors Richard’s foresight in making global health an important pillar of CFR’s work on U.S. foreign policy,” said Froman. “And I’m delighted that Tom will be the inaugural holder of the chair. Tom has been front and center in public policy discussions in elevating global health priorities on the national security, trade, and development agendas.” 

“Global health has long been a major priority for Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Richard Haass and the Council on Foreign Relations have been great partners in our work together,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries. “There are so many public health issues that require more urgent action, particularly noncommunicable diseases and injuries, and we look forward to helping Tom Bollyky and the CFR team tackle them worldwide.” 

CFR’s Global Health program was launched in 2004 to assess the foreign policy implications of global health challenges and offer recommendations for addressing them. As global health threats have expanded beyond the traditional killers of children and adolescents—endemic infectious diseases, such as malaria and measles—the CFR Global Health program has pioneered research on how collective action can empower states and non-state actors to meet new rising health challenges, most notably that of the premature burden of noncommunicable diseases in poor nations. 

Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Health program focuses on initiatives, including tobacco control, road safety, food policy, and cardiovascular health, in cities and low- and middle-income countries to help save millions of lives. Bloomberg Philanthropies builds strong partnerships with governments and leading organizations to spread effective public health strategies. Michael R. Bloomberg serves as the World Health Organization’s Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries, calling attention to, and working to address, the world’s leading causes of death. Bloomberg Philanthropies also supports the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which has been recognized as the #1 school of public health in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Report since their rankings began in 1994.

Bollyky has served as the director of the CFR Global Health program since 2018, during which time the program has more than tripled in size. During his tenure, Bollyky has testified five times before the U.S. Congress and foreign parliaments and published over one hundred and thirty articles and reports, including nearly fifty peer-reviewed publications. He directed the first two CFR-sponsored Independent Task Forces devoted to global health: on pandemic preparedness and on noncommunicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries. His book, Plagues and the Paradox of Progress, was listed as one of the top-selling health and medicine books in 2018 and translated into Chinese and Japanese. 

Bollyky is also the founder of CFR’s Think Global Health, a twice Webby Award-nominated online magazine that has published over 930 articles from more than 800 contributors in 59 countries. Previously, Bollyky served in a variety of roles in the U.S. government, most recently at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and as an attorney in private practice, where he litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice.

For more information, please contact CFR’s Global Communications and Media Relations team at 212.434.9888 or [email protected].