Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc is the inaugural Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, part of the City College of New York.

Previously, Dr. Chokshi served as the 43rd Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, one of the leading health agencies in the world. He led the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New Yorkers, saving tens of thousands of lives. Dr. Chokshi architected testing and treatment strategies, navigated school and economic reopenings, and served as principal public spokesperson. Under his tenure, the Health Department’s budget grew to its highest-ever level, reflecting investment in signature initiatives such as the Public Health Corps, Pandemic Response Institute, and New Family Home Visiting program. He also launched the nation’s first publicly-authorized overdose prevention centers, and—as Chair of the NYC Board of Health—promulgated a landmark resolution on racism as a public health crisis.

Dr. Chokshi’s prior work experience spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. From 2014-2020, he served in leadership roles at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), including as its inaugural Chief Population Health Officer, where he built an award-winning team dedicated to transforming the largest public health care system in the country. Dr. Chokshi was also Chief Executive Officer of the H+H Accountable Care Organization (ACO), one of the few ACOs in the nation to achieve high quality and cost performance for ten consecutive years. Earlier, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as a White House Fellow at the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, where he was the principal health advisor in the Office of the Secretary.

Dr. Chokshi has practiced at Bellevue Hospital since 2014 and is also Clinical Professor of Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine, Senior Scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health, and Senior Fellow at The New School’s Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy. Dr. Chokshi has written on medicine and public health in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, the Lancet, Health Affairs, Science, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. Currently, Dr. Chokshi is on the nonprofit boards of Community Solutions and Rock Health; is an independent board member at Yuvo Health; and is an advisor to Accompany Health, Sanarai, and the Brown School of Public Health.

He trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital, where he received the Dunne Award for Compassionate Care, and was a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School. During his training, he did clinical work in Guatemala, Peru, Botswana, Ghana, and India. He received his M.D. with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction from Penn, where he was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and was elected by his peers to win the Joel Gordon Miller Prize. He also earned an MSc in global public health as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and graduated summa cum laude from Duke.

MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

MSc (Global Public Health), University of Oxford

MSc (Comparative Social Policy), University of Oxford

BA (Chemistry and Public Policy Studies), Duke University

Leadership in Health Equity

1. The Nation's First Publicly Recognized Overdose Prevention Centers: Lessons Learned in New York City.

Giglio RE, Mantha S, Harocopos A, Saha N, Reilly J, Cipriano C, Kennelly M, Landau L, McRae M, Chokshi DA. J Urban Health. 2023 Apr;100(2):245-254. doi: 10.1007/s11524-023-00717-y. Epub 2023 Apr 4.

2. Return on Investment of the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in New York City.

Sah P, Vilches TN, Moghadas SM, Pandey A, Gondi S, Schneider EC, Singer J, Chokshi DA, Galvani AP. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Nov 1;5(11):e2243127. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.43127.

3. Staying Connected In The COVID-19 Pandemic: Telehealth At The Largest Safety-Net System In The United States.

Lau J, Knudsen J, Jackson H, Wallach AB, Bouton M, Natsui S, Philippou C, Karim E, Silvestri DM, Avalone L, Zaurova M, Schatz D, Sun V, Chokshi DA. Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 Aug;39(8):1437-1442. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00903. Epub 2020 Jun 11.

4. Income, Poverty, and Health Inequality.

Chokshi DA. JAMA. 2018 Apr 3;319(13):1312-1313. doi: 10.1001/jama.2018.2521. 

5. Health Reform and the Changing Safety Net in the United States.

Chokshi DA, Chang JE, Wilson RM. N Engl J Med. 2016 Nov 3;375(18):1790-1796. doi: 10.1056/NEJMhpr1608578.

6. Universal health coverage for US veterans: a goal within reach.

Chokshi DA, Sommers BD. Lancet. 2015 Jun 6;385(9984):2320-1. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61254-X. Epub 2014 Nov 24.

7. Changing behaviors to prevent noncommunicable diseases.

Chokshi DA, Farley TA. Science. 2014 Sep 12;345(6202):1243-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1259809.

8. Reconsidering the politics of public health.

Chokshi DA, Stine NW. JAMA. 2013 Sep 11;310(10):1025-6. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.110872.

9. Community health workers--a local solution to a global problem.

Singh P, Chokshi DA. N Engl J Med. 2013 Sep 5;369(10):894-6. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1305636.

10. The cost-effectiveness of environmental approaches to disease prevention.

Chokshi DA, Farley TA. N Engl J Med. 2012 Jul 26;367(4):295-7. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1206268.

Forget About Living to 100. Let’s Live Healthier Instead. (New York Times, 2023)

Here’s How CDC Can Put the ‘Public’ Back in Public Health (Scientific American, 2023)

Ask a Doctor: Is it possible to reverse my diabetes? (Washington Post, 2023)

The pandemic cracked the door open to universal health care. Here's how we could still get there (Salon, 2023)

The Pandemic’s Most Important Lesson: A Call for Bold Change (United Hospital Fund, 2022)

Life Expectancy Is Falling. Here’s How to Change That. (New York Times, 2022)

Covid pandemic has left U.S. with new epidemic of loneliness (CNBC, 2022)

COVID proves America needs a Public Health Corps (The Hill, 2021)

The Patients We Do Not See (Scientific American, 2017)

Guiding New York City Through COVID-19 (The Doctor's Art Podcast, 2023)

Policy Spotlight: One-On-One With Dave A. Chokshi (Health Affairs, 2022)

Health Chief Of New York Praises Effect Of Vaccines (New York Times, 2022)

Dr. Dave Chokshi stepping down as health commissioner after guiding NYC through COVID pandemic (CBS New York, 2022)

When COVID hit home for NYC’s health commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi (MarketWatch, 2021)