While President-elect Lawrence H. Summers braves the New England weather and the harassing minutiae of his first year as Harvard’s leader, departing Provost Harvey V. Fineberg ’67 will be far away in “perpetual springtime” climates in Mexico and California.

Fineberg, who steps down as the University’s second-highest official on July 1, will split his year-long sabbatical between the National Institute for Public Health (INSP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

Fineberg and his wife, Mary E. Wilson, who is the head of Infectious Disease at Mt. Auburn Hospital, will be fellows at INSP. Wilson will be working on a revision of her book, A World Guide to Infections, and Fineberg will focus on projects in his academic specialty—public health.

Julio Frank, INSP’s director, is a close friend of Fineberg and Wilson’s, and will speak at the School of Public Health’s Commencement on Thursday.

Cuernavaca, Fineberg said glowingly, is an “ideal” climate, adding that the research opportunities the institute provided were intriguing.

Fineberg will also be one of 48 fellows at the Center for Advanced Study, which funds research across an array of academic disciplines.

“We give people the opportunity and the atmosphere to do research unencumbered by administrative concerns,” said Douglas McAdam, the center’s director.

The center is situated on Stanford University property, but is independent of that institution, with its own finances, trustees and facilities. It rents the land from Stanford for $1 a year.