Joseph C. Kolars serves as the Leslie D. Yamada and Tachi Yamada M.D. Director of the University of Michigan Center for Global Health Equity and Co-Director, Peking University U-M Joint institute for Translational and Clinical Research. A practicing gastroenterologist, he is Professor of Medicine and Learning Health Sciences, U-M Medical School and Professor of Health Management and Policy, U-M School of Public Health. His career has focused on Medical Education. Most recently, he served as Senior Associate Dean for Education at the University of Michigan Medical School 2009-2023, overseeing medical student, graduate, resident/fellow, and post-doctoral education as well as continuing professional development/CME. He has served as Program Director Internal Medicine Residency and fellowship programs at U-M and at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He has worked in global health and strengthening education systems in low-resource settings for over 40 years. From 1996-1999, he lived with his family in Shanghai to establish one of China’s first western-based health care systems and in 2010 established U-M’s Joint Institute for Translational and Clinical Research with Peking University Health Science Center. He currently serves as a Trustee for the China Medical Board. From 2007-11 he served as a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has served on NIH’s Fogarty International Center Advisory Council and has been extensively involved with the NIH Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and now the African Forum for Research and Education and Health (AFREhealth). He obtained his M.D. degree in 1982 from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his post-graduate training in gastroenterology at the University of Michigan.

- Medical Education
- Global Health
- Capacity building in low-income settings
- Assessment of teacher quality, efficacy of medical learning venues
- Educational outcomes, measurements of learner competency
- Educating trainees to improve patient care