Graduation congratulations! Red-letter day for MPH graduate Ibrahim Ali, with UW Global Health chair Dr. King Holmes. (Photo: Bliss Ali)

Approachable. Kind. And dedicated as they come.

University of Washington’s Global Health Department founder and chair, Dr. King Holmes, is stepping down. Even at age 75, it’s a shock to lose our world-renown leader in HIV/AIDS and STDs research, a doctor who’s trained generations of global health students, scientists, and researchers not just in diseases but in their effects socially and behaviorally. He’s made the UW global health program a global powerhouse.

Dr. Holmes often lectured in my global health classes, most often on the global burden of disease in sexually communicable diseases. We also shared a mutual passion for the SCOPE project in Ethiopia, which brings together academic, medical, and faith-based organizations to lessen the prevalence of HIV/AIDs in that country. They do this by working with ‘soul fathers‘ (Ethiopian Orthodox priests), encouraging believers not only to drink so-called ‘curative holy waters’ but to take their anti-retroviral drugs as well. It’s making a difference.

Dr. Holmes will keep working and researching on his own projects and volunteer work after he’s left the UW. It’s hard to imagine otherwise.

Thank you, Dr. Holmes, for your gift of global health to Seattle, the University of Washington, and the world.