Abdul El-Sayed

Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed (born October 31, 1984) is an American doctor, former public health professor, government official, and politician who served from 2023 to 2025 as the director of the Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services for Wayne County, Michigan. A progressive Democrat, he was a candidate for governor of Michigan in the 2018 election. El-Sayed is running for the Democratic nomination in the 2026 United States Senate election in Michigan. El-Sayed is a graduate of the University of Michigan and University of Oxford's Oriel College, attending them on a full-tuition scholarship and a Rhodes Scholarship, respectively. He earned his MD at Columbia University. In his athletic career, he earned a full blue as captain of Oxford's men's lacrosse team. El-Sayed was an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University from 2014 to 2015. He was executive director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer for the City of Detroit from 2015 to 2017. He resigned as health director to run for governor in 2017.