Dr. J. Mario Molina has been named founding dean of the Keck Graduate Institute School of Medicine, which is part of the Claremont Colleges and is in its first phase.
For 20 years, Molina was chief executive officer of Molina Healthcare, a Fortune 500 company founded by his father in 1980 to provide healthcare to low-income families and individuals, according to a statement.
“Dean Molina is highly regarded by his colleagues for his vision, passion, expertise, and leadership,” Institute President Sheldon Schuster said in the statement. “He has an immense amount of experience in serving Southern California communities, and we are confident in his ability to develop an innovative medical school for the 21st century.”
Keck Graduate Institute was founded in 1987. It was the first higher education institution in the United States dedicated exclusively to the applied life sciences, according to the institute’s website.