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Abdul El-Sayed
Abdul (Abdulrahman Mohamed) El-Sayed is an Egyptian American Physician, Epidemiologist, and public health advocate. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer for the City of Detroit. At 31, he is the youngest health commissioner of any major city in the US. Previously, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He is an internationally recognized public health expert, and the author of over 100 scholarly articles, abstracts, and book chapters on public health policy, social epidemiology, and health disparities. His essays on public health policy have also been published in the New York Times, CNN, the Hill, the Huffington Post, the Detroit News, and the Detroit Free Press.

Early Life

El-Sayed was born in metro-Detroit to parents who immigrated to the US from Egypt. He grew up in metro-Detroit with his father, Dr. Mohamed El-Sayed, and stepmother, Dr. Jacqueline El-Sayed, both engineering professors. His mother, Fatten Elkomy, is a nurse practitioner in Missouri.

Education

El-Sayed graduated in 2003 from Bloomfield Hills Andover High School, where he was a three-sport athlete (football, wrestling, and lacrosse) and captain. He attended the University of Michigan, where he majored in Biology and Political Science, and played for the University’s men’s lacrosse team. Winning several awards, including the William Jennings Bryan Prize for Political Science, he graduated with Highest Distinction and delivered the student commencement speech alongside President Bill Clinton in 2007.

He was awarded a full-tuition Dean’s scholarship to attend the University of Michigan Medical School, where he completed his first two years of medical school. There, he led a student medical mission to Peru and founded a student organization which raised money and coordinated community service for a local free clinic. He was awarded the Marshall Scholarship and Rhodes Scholarship in 2009 as a second year medical student. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2009, where he competed a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health in under two years in 2011. While at Oxford, he earned a full blue as captain of Oxford’s men’s lacrosse team. He completed his MD at Columbia University in 2014 on a Soros Fellowship for New Americans and Medical Scientist Training Program fellow funded through the National Institutes of Health.

Career

Public Health Professor

In 2014, he joined the faculty at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health as Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. He served as director of Columbia’s Systems Science Program and Global Research Analytics for Population Health. As a researcher, he has authored over 100 scientific publications, including articles, commentaries, book chapters, and abstracts, about health disparities, birth outcomes, and obesity. His research has been cited over 600 times. He is the recipient of several research awards, including being named one of the Carnegie Council’s Policy Innovators. He created and taught the Mailman School’s first ever course on systems science and population health.

Health Commissioner of Detroit

El-Sayed was appointed by Mayor Mike Duggan as Health Officer and Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department in August, 2015, making him the youngest Health commissioner in a major US city. In his role, he was charged with rebuilding the Detroit Health Department after it was privatized during the City of Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy in 2012. In his first year as Director, El-Sayed led efforts to oppose increases in sulfur dioxide emissions by Marathon Petroleum’s Southwest Refinery, which resulted in reductions in overall emissions. He also led efforts to test Detroit schools for lead in the wake of Flint’s Water crisis. In view of his leadership on lead poisoning reduction, he was appointed to the governor’s statewide Childhood Lead Elimination Board. He also led a transformation at the City’s troubled Animal Control department.

Personal

El-Sayed lives in Detroit, Michigan with his wife, Sarah Jukaku, also a physician. El-Sayed had a sandwich named after him (“the Abdul”) at Ricardo’s, a sandwich shop in Oxford’s Covered market, while a student at Oxford University.