Seiji Yamada is the Director of Medical Student Education and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. After immigrating to the U.S. from Japan when as a child, Yamada earned his MPH from the University of Hawai`i School of Public Health, and his MD from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago. Among Yamada’s priorities is improving health in the Pacific Islands. In 2014, he worked as a part of an `Ohana Medical Missions effort to help people in the Philippines who were affected by Typhoon Haiyan. Yamada is also working on public health responses to climate change.