Dr. Raul Pino has been appointed to serve as the state Commissioner of the Department of Public Health, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Thursday.

Pino has been serving in the role of acting commissioner since December, and before that served as deputy commissioner of the agency. 

Prior to serving as deputy commissioner of the health department, Pino was director of the City of Hartford Department of Health and Human Services, where he managed the department’s budget and oversaw labor relations, public health preparedness, code enforcement, and the department’s management team, the governor's office said in a news release.

Earlier, he served as an epidemiologist for the state health department's Sexually Transmitted Diseases Unit and worked at the Institute for Community Research, the Hispanic Health Council, and Hartford Hospital.

He is a member of the American Public Health Association and National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse.

He graduated from the University of Havana with a doctorate in Medicine, and from the UConn School of Medicine with an master's degree in Public Health.

He is originally from Cuba, where he served in the Cuban army.

He later came to Connecticut as a political refugee, where he worked his way to attend graduate school, according to the news release.

Dr. Pino succeeds Dr. Jewel Mullen, who departed the agency at the end of last year to take a position with the federal Department of Health and Human Services.