Dr. Sejal Hathi steps into role as Oregon Health Authority interim director pending Senate confirmation

PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Sejal Hathi, M.D., M.B.A., a board-certified physician, former White House senior policy advisor and Johns Hopkins University faculty member, and staunch advocate for women’s and children’s health, has stepped into her newest role: Oregon Health Authority interim director.

Dr. Hathi, who most recently was New Jersey's deputy health commissioner for public health services and designated state health officer, started her job as OHA’s top executive today. She will serve as interim director pending confirmation as permanent director by the Oregon Legislature, following hearings set to begin in early February.

Dr. Hathi was appointed by Gov. Tina Kotek in November. She takes over from David Baden, the agency’s longtime chief fiscal officer, who has served as interim director since March 2023.

For Dr. Hathi, the move to OHA marks a pivotal moment in her busy, wide-ranging career to work for and with an administration that “embodies her values” of equity, evidence-based policy and innovation.

“I’ve had my eye on Oregon for some time,” Dr. Hathi said. “Oregon Health Authority has become a national leader in lifting up the voices of communities it serves. It’s an agency I have long respected and that is, nationwide, regarded for its ambition and commitment to eliminating health inequities by 2030; to modernizing the state’s public health system; and to continually reinventing how health care is delivered to its Medicaid population.”

Dr. Hathi says she looks forward to visiting communities around the state in the coming months to meet with Oregonians, civic leaders, community-based organizations, local public health authorities, tribes and health care leaders to “hear their visions for a healthier Oregon.” Among topics she hopes to cover are the state’s behavioral health crisis, making health care more affordable and accessible, and addressing the structural determinants of health so the state can equitably reach all people – particularly those representing communities that are underserved or historically marginalized.

“Today, no state in the nation is doing more to protect and expand health coverage than Oregon,” Dr. Hathi said. “And no state is doing more to use health benefits in new and innovative ways to tackle the biggest problems facing communities across the state.”

She added, “Protecting and expanding health coverage means more people, especially children, will get the care they need to be healthier. More people will get access to mental health and substance use treatment. Fewer people will be at risk for homelessness and hunger.”

Dr. Hathi said she believes the agency’s goal to transform Oregon’s statewide behavioral health system can be achieved by expanding funding, investing in prevention – including the social, cultural and economic drivers of mental health – replenishing the behavioral health provider workforce, and “building a more accountable, integrated and culturally responsive system of care that is grounded in public health and nimble enough to address new and emerging threats to our communities, such as fentanyl.”

Such aspiration has been a matter of course for Dr. Hathi throughout her career, which has been marked by the founding and co-founding of multiple health- and civic engagement-focused non-profit organizations, and appointments to several prestigious national and international leadership positions.

They included serving for two years as the White House’s senior policy advisor for public health, where she led policy development and oversight across a broad portfolio for the Domestic Policy Council, and as one of nine public health leaders to former United National Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s expert advisory group on women’s and children’s health, where she evaluated and reported on global progress against maternal and child mortality.

As a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellow on faculty at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Hathi cared for COVID-19 patients and launched a voter education and mobilization initiative for providers and their patients. In addition, she has held joint faculty appointments as an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Hathi earned her bachelor’s degree in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from Yale University in 2013, and a joint M.D./M.B.A. from the Stanford School of Medicine and Graduate School of Business in 2018. She has co-authored at least a dozen papers on everything from gun violence to adolescent health, and has received several regional, national and international honors, including one of six Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards globally and The Daily Beast/Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World.” She has spoken at TED, TEDx and the United Nations, and was once named the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin’s Most Distinguished Young Physician of the Year.

During her introduction after Gov. Kotek’s announcement on Nov. 6, Dr. Hathi told reporters her passion for “fixing what is broken” and “finding, understanding and reforming structures and institutions that entrench social inequities and compress the human potential” was inspired by her family, “for whom subverting such structures was cardinal to survival.”

As a first-generation U.S. citizen – her father is a political refugee from Uganda and her mother is from Tanzania – she has “been raised with a conviction in the American project and in the principle that how we reach out and touch the world is how the world will reach back and shape us in the future.”

“This is the spirit that I have sought to bring to all that I pursue and all that I have done,” she said.