Guillermo “Willy” Prado, M.S. ’00, Ph.D. ’05
Interim Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Guillermo (Willy) Prado is the University of Miami’s chief academic officer, serving as interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, with appointing and oversight authority concerning the deans of the 12 schools and colleges and the senior administrators involved with research, undergraduate and graduate education, and other academic areas. Prado is professor of nursing and health studies, public health sciences, and psychology at the University. He is a pioneer in health disparities and behavioral interventions for the prevention of substance use, sexual risk behaviors, obesity, and mental health in Hispanic families.
He has received approximately $20 million of continuous NIH and CDC funding since his doctoral studies as PI and over $100 million as co-investigator, mentor, or collaborator. His research has led to over 190 peer-reviewed articles and chapters.
Prado’s scholarship on family-based preventive interventions and Hispanic adolescents is internationally recognized. At the time that he and his colleagues began developing family-based preventive interventions for Hispanics, there were no such interventions for this population. For significantly advancing knowledge in behavioral interventions, health disparities, and adolescent health literature, Prado has received numerous awards and honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Science Network; the Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award from the Society for Prevention Research; and election to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. His research has been featured in multiple media outlets, including the Miami Herald, NBC, Univision, and CNN en Español. He has also been invited to serve as a witness to the U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparities and Fairness in Growth to speak about prevention science and health disparities.
Prado’s strong commitment to teaching and mentoring has been evident since he arrived at the University in 2007. He has taught courses in prevention science, research methods, professional development, and biostatistics, and received the Department of Public Health Sciences’ inaugural faculty teaching award from the Public Health Student Association.
Prado is also dedicated to mentoring and training the next generation of prevention and health disparities scientists, particularly those who identify as underrepresented minorities (URM). More than 90 percent of his doctoral mentees in the past 10 years have been URMs. All his doctoral mentees have pursued careers in research, academia, and industry. His post-doctoral fellows have all successfully pursued faculty positions upon completion of their training, and all have received NIH K awards and/or R01s within 18 months of completing their fellowship with him. Prado has received mentoring awards including the award for mentoring early career preventionists from the Society for Prevention Research and the Presidential Award of the Florida Education Fund for his commitment to training URMs.
Prado has served as the University’s vice provost for Faculty Affairs and dean of the Graduate School, and as founding director of the Division of Prevention Science and Community Health, director of the Epidemiology Division, and director of the Ph.D. program in Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine. He is a former associate editor of Prevention Science and the immediate past president of the Society for Prevention Research, an organization of more than 800 prevention scientists, practitioners, and policy makers. Currently, he is on the executive committee of the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine of Florida; and on the board of directors of Research! America, a nonprofit medical and health research advocacy alliance, whose board consists of former secretaries of Health and Human Services, former NIH directors, the president of the National Academy of Medicine, the president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Colleagues of Nursing, among other health leaders and policy makers.
