LLU president - Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH
Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH, was appointed president of Loma Linda University on February 24, 2008, and assumed office on March 24, 2008.
Biography
Prior to becoming President, Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH, was named chancellor and chief executive officer of Loma Linda University in February, 2001. He was born in 1945 at the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital, and received his early education in Washington at Upper Columbia Academy in Spangle, and Walla Walla College in College Place. While at Walla Walla, he became the first student missionary from the Seventh-day Adventist Church to serve outside of North America.
In 1966, prior to his first year in medical school, he married Judy Osborne. The Harts now have three daughters: Chandra, Briana, and Kari.
In 1970, he earned two LLU degrees--an MD from the School of Medicine and an MPH from the School of Public Health. Following an internal medicine internship at LLUMC, he began studies toward his doctor of public health degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
From 1972 to 1976, Dr. Hart served in Tanzania. As a population intern from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, he developed the department of community health in Moshi. During this time, he co-authored Child Health, a book for mid-level health professionals in Africa. In 1974, a USAID contract with LLU took him to Dar es Salaam, where he was chief of party to the Ministry of Health and helped to develop a maternal and child health program.
In 1977, Dr. Hart received his doctor of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University and became board-certified in preventive medicine. 
Dr. Hart has served Loma Linda University since 1972, including as chair of the Department of Health Sciences, director of the Center for Health Promotion, chair of the School of Medicine Department of Preventive Medicine, and, since 1990, dean of the School of Public Health.
Dr. Hart's vision extends to the farthest reaches of the globe. His early involvement in student missionary work was key in the development of Students for International Mission Service and Social Action Community Health System--a local low-cost health-care system for the medically underserved. He is also president of Adventist Health International, a new organization created to manage health services in developing countries.
