June 30, 2025

Recording of Dr. King Holmes Celebration of Life

Dr. King Holmes, the founding Chair of the Department of Global Health (DGH) and a long-standing leader in the Division of Allergy & Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, died on Sunday, March 9, 2025. He passed peacefully with the loving support of his family and close friends.

King was a man of tremendous vision, intellect, warmth, and caring, who mentored and inspired generations of people around the world to transform sexual and reproductive health through research, clinical practice, and interdisciplinary training.

A celebration of Dr. Holmes’ life, with presentations by family members and several of Dr. Holmes’ trainees and colleagues, was held on Monday, June 16, Kane Hall, University of Washington. A recording is available here.

If you would like to honor him, donations can be made to the King K. Holmes Endowed Professorship in STD and AIDS.

You can read more about King’s many contributions here, or HotSpot: How Seattle Became The Place for Infectious Diseases Research by Mary Engle provides a great summary.

A special tribute to King was published in the 50th Anniversary edition of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Sex Transm Dis. 2024, 51(9):601-602. doi:10.1097/OLQ.0000000000002013).