Julie Morita

Julie Morita is an American public health expert. She is president of the Joyce Foundation and previously served as the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She also served as a member of President Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board and as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Early life and education Morita was born in Chicago to Mototsugu and Betty Morita. During World War II, her parents were uprooted from their homes in the Pacific Northwest and detained in Japanese Internment Camps in Idaho. Morita has discussed her family's history as a major influence on her interest in health equity. As a young girl, she was interested in a career in medicine, inspired by the children's book "Nurse Nancy."

In 1982, she began her undergraduate career at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she planned to pursue a degree in engineering. She also worked to decrease stigma around the HPV vaccine, which is another source of vaccine hesitancy.

In 2015, Morita was appointed as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health under the leadership of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, becoming the first Asian American to lead the department. In this role, she developed and launched Healthy Chicago 2.0, a four-year program that launched in April 2016 focused on addressing health equity and addressing root causes of disparity, centering on community collaboration.

In June 2019, Morita left her post as commissioner to join the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as executive vice president. She and her colleagues used insights garnered from the survey to inform policies to address these economic inequities and address structural barriers. Morita advocated for the importance of coordinating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure rapid, safe, and equitable distribution of an eventual COVID-19 vaccine.

On November 9, 2020, Morita was named to serve on President Joe Biden's COVID-19 advisory board.