Somsak Chunharas formerly served as Deputy Minister of Health for Thailand and is currently President of National Health Foundation in Thailand, an NGO promoting and coordinating evidence-based health policy and system development. Throughout his career in the ministry of health, Dr. Chunharas directed several offices of the Ministry of Public Health, focusing on international health, health policy and system development, international collaboration, health manpower development, and the Bureau of Health Policy and Strategies. He was the founding director of the Health System Research Institute. Dr. Chunharas also pioneered a team working on health economics and health financing capacity building which led to various health reform initiatives over the last 30 years, such as a health promotion fund and the development of the Thai universal health care system. He was recently a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2017.