Sheetal Khedkar Rao, MD

Sheetal Khedkar Rao, MD became interested in the impact of climate change on health and well-being when her basement was damaged by three "100-year" floods in under a decade. She went on to complete a Climate and Health Community Organizing Fellowship through Harvard's Center for Health Equity Education & Advocacy in 2022 as well as the Climate and Health Science Policy Fellowship through the University of Colorado Medical School in 2023. In fall of 2023, Dr. Rao was selected to represent Nordson Green Earth Foundation and its community partners in the National Academy of Medicine’s Climate Communities Network.

Dr. Rao obtained her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She studied medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and completed her residency at the University of IL, Chicago (UIC) where she now cares for patients and trains future physicians as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine. Dr. Rao is also a Clinical Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division of the UIC School of Public Health, where she co-teaches a graduate course on the health impacts of climate change. Her climate work and activism is inspired by the desire to make a better future for all --particularly her children, her patients and the Chicagoland communities she works with.