Abdul El-Sayed

Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed (Arabic: عبدالرحمن محمد السيد born October 31, 1984) is an American politician, former public health professor, and civil servant serving as the director of the Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services for Wayne County. He was a candidate in Michigan's 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary election, placing second out of three candidates. In September 2018, he founded Southpaw Michigan, a political action committee, to help elect other progressive candidates in Michigan. El-Sayed was executive director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer for the City of Detroit from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, he resigned as health director to run for governor. He was also formerly an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He is a political contributor at CNN, the author of Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic and Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide (co-authored with Micah Johnson), and the host of America Dissected with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a podcast about politics and public health produced by Crooked Media. In 2020, he served on the Joe Biden–Bernie Sanders Unity Task Force on health care. Early life and education El-Sayed was born in the metro Detroit area to parents who emigrated to the United States from Egypt.