Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD serves as the Secretary of Health for Maryland. In this role, she leads a department of approximately 9,000 employees spanning local health departments, public health, Medicaid, disability and behavioral health administrations, inclusive of 11 state-run health facilities totaling a budget upwards of $20 billion. She is an accomplished, strategic leader with a deep understanding of health care policy and operations, and a heart-felt commitment to outstanding patient care. Her diverse background as a health care executive, health economist, physician and health policy expert has given her a unique perspective on how health care policy and operations impact the real lives of patients. Dr. Seshamani most recently served as Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, where she led her team through historic transformation to further the agency’s goals to address health care disparities, expand access to coverage and care, drive innovation for high-quality, whole-person care, and promote affordability and sustainability of the Medicare program for generations to come. Dr. Seshamani is a Hopkins-trained surgeon and Oxford-trained PhD economist, where she was a Marshall Scholar. Her previous leadership roles included serving as Vice President of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health. She also cared for patients as a head and neck surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco.