Raed is the Director for the Office of Innovation at the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). As part of senior management at CDPH, he led their award-winning first Office of Innovation, using a health equity lens to be a catalyst for innovation and create long-lasting transformational improvements in public health. Raed was also detailed as the Public Health Technology Group Supervisor for the Health and Medical Branch of the Operations Section during the City of Chicago’s COVID-19 sustained response.
Raed has also led CDPH to join the Executive Advisory Council of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative and was instrumental in creating CDPH’s Environmental Health Scientific & Technical Advisory.
Raed joined Openlands’ Board in 2021 and sees Openlands’ work conserving natural resources for cleaner air and water as intersecting with his career in improving public health and quality of life. He is a trained TreeKeeper and avid birder, volunteering his time as a Piping Plover Monitor, and planning a natural bird habitat with the Chicago Audubon Society at River Park, the same park he adopted as part of Openlands’ TreeKeeper program.
Raed lives in the Albany Park neighborhood. He received his B.S. in Neurobiology and Animal Physiology from Purdue University, his M.S. in Health Communication from Boston University, and a Certificate in Predictive Analytics from DePaul University. He is an active member of the American Public Health Association, Sigma Xi scientific research honor society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.