Vaishu Jawahar, Former Aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, Joins Public Affairs Firm Waxman Strategies
- Before joining the White House, the Dalit American was a regional program manager for the Committee to Protect Health Care.
Vaishu Jawahar, a former member of Vice President Kamala Harris’ team, is joining Waxman Strategies, a progressive-minded public affairs firm, as a director in the health practice. Most recently as Harris’ domestic policy coordinator, the Indian American has “experience in the executive and legislative branches, as well as advocacy,” the D.C.-based firm said on its website, announcing the new hires.
“Her contributions include work on implementing the White House Maternal Health Blueprint and the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health,” the website said. Her “commitment to health care advocacy is evident from her work with the Committee to Protect Health Care, the Biden Campaign, and other impactful organizations,” it added.
The young health care leader joined Harris’ office after working as an intern for the White House Domestic Policy Council. “As a first-generation immigrant from the Dalit community in India, I never imagined working in the White House,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I’m so proud to be a part of an administration that works hard to improve the lives of all Americans.” Her grandma was an OB/GYN “who delivered babies and provided abortions in India for over 50 years, and I can’t stop thinking about how happy she’d be to see me working for a women’s rights champion like Vice President Harris,” she wrote.
Before joining the White House, she was a regional program manager for the Committee to Protect Health Care. In that role, she mobilized doctors and nurses across five different states to hold politicians accountable for COVID misinformation and advocate for policies that expand access to care, defend access to abortion care, and protect public health, led campaigns, and supported policies such as paid sick leave expansion in Virginia, constitutional protection of reproductive rights in Michigan, and Medicaid expansion in North Carolina,” according to her LinkedIn profile.
Jawahar has a Master’s of Science degree in physiology and biophysics from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and a Bachelor of Science from University of North Carolina at Charlotte in biology with minors in public health and political science.