About the Chancellor
Michael F. Collins, MD, FACP
Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts
Chancellor, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Professor of Population & Quantitative Health Sciences and Medicine, T.H. Chan School of Medicine
Michael F. Collins, MD, a tenured professor of population & quantitative health sciences and medicine, is the longest serving chancellor in the history of the University of Massachusetts. He was appointed chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School in 2008 after serving in an interim capacity from June 2007 to Sept. 2008. Dr. Collins’ interim appointment also coincided with his being named senior vice president for health sciences for the University of Massachusetts, which, at the time, was a newly established system-wide position. As the senior vice president, Dr. Collins has spearheaded two five-campus life sciences strategic planning processes and continues to guide the strategic direction of the University’s growing life and health sciences portfolio.
A prolific fundraiser, Dr. Collins, during his tenure as chancellor, has helped raise nearly $1 billion in philanthropy to support the Medical School’s mission and strategic direction. Dr. Collins is credited with securing two of the largest gifts in the University’s history, including, in 2025, a $35 million donation from the Florida-based Paul J. DiMare Foundation to support neurodegenerative and genetic disease research and, in 2021, a history-making $175 million donation from The Morningside Foundation of Newton, Massachusetts. This transformational and unrestricted philanthropic gift came as the Medical School celebrated its 50th year of educating future physicians, nursing leaders and biomedical scientists. In recognition of the gift and of the deep commitment to education, research and health care by the Chan family of investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists, UMass Medical School, in September 2021, was renamed the UMass Chan Medical School. The institution’s three graduate schools are now known as: the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing and the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
As chancellor, Dr. Collins oversees one of the most entrepreneurial medical schools in the nation, which is consistently ranked among the best in primary care education and biomedical research and perennially recognized as a top place to work. He provides strategic management to a burgeoning enterprise that includes more than 6,000 employees; more than 1,500 graduate-level students and 700 medical residents and fellows; three graduate schools; and two regional campuses. UMass Chan generates more than $1 billion in annual revenues and garners more than $350 million annually in external research funding. Unique among all medical schools, UMass Chan is home to two strategic business units: ForHealth Consulting, a substantial health care consulting division that partners with Massachusetts and other states to maximize health care expenditures and deliver health services to vulnerable populations; and MassBiologics, the only university-based, nonprofit FDA-licensed discoverer and manufacturer of vaccines and other biologics in the United States.
Dr. Collins joined the University of Massachusetts in 2005 as chancellor of the UMass Boston campus He served as president and chief executive officer of the Caritas Christi Health Care System from 1994 to 2004.
An alumnus, honorary degree recipient and former board chair of the College of Holy Cross and a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Collins is a board-certified physician in internal medicine. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.