Born in Quito, Ecuador, Dr. E. Benjamín Puertas completed his studies in Medicine and Surgery at the Central University of Ecuador and holds a master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a Doctorate in Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Puertas has served as regional director of health in refugee camps in Malawi and Mozambique with the American Refugee Committee (USA) and Medicins Sans Frontieres (France). He was the founding dean of the School of Public Health of Universidad de San Francisco de Quito and from 2009 to 2011 leaded the health reform process in Ecuador. Dr. Puertas started his career in PAHO/WHO as Subregional Advisor, Human Resources for Health for South America, based in Lima, Perú. Later he was Health Systems and Services Advisor in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and served as a Sub-Regional Advisor, Human Resources for Health for Central America, and Dominican Republic, based in El Salvador, and for the Caribbean, based in Barbados. He was recently appointed as Unit Chief, Human Resources for Health for PAHO.