Indian American Dr. Sejal Hathi Named Director of Oregon Health Authority

Biden alumni Dr. Sejal Hathi has been named director of the Oregon Health Authority, effective Jan. 16. She brings “over a decade of experience in medicine, health policy and education, and non-profit development,” Gov. Tina Kotek said in the announcement this week. 

“I’m both excited and humbled to be a part of the ground-breaking advances in health care access that are happening in Oregon,” Hathi said in a statement. “At the national level, all eyes are on Oregon and the steps this state is taking to expand health coverage and tackle root cause issues, such as the social determinants of health. I look forward to continuing this proud tradition and working with the team to make every community in the state a healthier place to live.” 

Before joining the Oregon Health Authority, she served as New Jersey’s deputy health commissioner for public health services and designated state health officer. Prior to that, she served for two years as the White House’s Senior Policy Advisor for Public Health, where she led various Administration priorities for the Domestic Policy Council. 

She is a board-certified attending physician, and has held joint faculty appointments as an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She cared for COVID-19 patients as a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellow on faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she also launched and led a voter education and mobilization initiative for providers and their patients. 

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A serial entrepreneur, she has founded and led two global social enterprises, each advancing women’s and girls’ agency in some of the most impoverished regions of the world, according to her biodata. In 2013, Hathi was appointed as one of nine public health leaders to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s expert advisory group on women’s & children’s health, “charged with evaluating and reporting global progress against maternal and child mortality,” her biodata added. 

StaffHathi holds a B.S. with honors from Yale University and an M.D./ M.B.A. from Stanford University, where she studied as a Harry S. Truman Scholar and Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow. Among other honors, she’s been named to the Forbes 30 under 30, Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World,” Glamour’s Amazing Young Women of the Year, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Academy of Achievement delegates, and the United States Presidential Scholars for her work.