Draft:Umair A. Shah

Umair A. Shah is an American internist, public health official, and emergency department physician. In December 2020, Governor Jay Inslee appointed Shah as the Secretary of Health for the great State of Washington. He is the first Asian American of South Asian descent to serve in this position.

Shah grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from Walnut Hills High School. He went on to earn a B.A. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, an M.D. from the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences (then the Medical College of Ohio), and an M.P.H. in management and policy from The University of Texas School of Public Health. During medical school, Shah interned at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Switzerland.

From 1999 until his 2020 appointment as Washington's Secretary of Health, Shah was an attending physician in the emergency department at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, Texas. From 2004 until 2013, Shah served as the deputy director of disease and clinical prevention for Harris County Public Health, at which point he was appointed as the agency's executive director and local health authority.

Shah lives in Washington state with his wife and their three children.