Sheetal Khedkar Rao
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine; Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Public Health
Biography
Dr. Sheetal Khedkar Rao is an assistant professor of clinical medicine and adjunct clinical assistant professor of public health at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and the UIC Department of Medicine’s Division of Academic Internal Medicine and Geriatrics.
Rao is an internal medicine/primary care physician whose special interest in the environmental determinants of health led her to complete fellowships in climate and health policy at the University of Colorado and community organizing at Harvard’s Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy.
As a clinical educator, Rao teaches internal medicine residents in the ambulatory setting. She also teaches a graduate-level course at the UIC School of Public Health on the health impacts of climate change.
Outside of the clinic, Rao collaborates with local communities to improve health and biodiversity by increasing tree canopy and native greenspaces around the Chicago region through her Illinois-based nonprofit organization, Nordson Green Earth, a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Climate Communities Network.
Rao additionally works on health care climate resilience as part of the American Hospital Association’s Climate and Community Health Technical Expert Panel and as a board member of the Illinois Clinicians for Climate Action.