Shape Shifters: Translating Experience from Medicine to Politics 

This Salon featured Dr. Shannon Hader, a medical doctor, scientist, and public health expert, and Dr. Nadia Hashimi, a pediatrician, an internationally bestselling author, a first generation Afghan-American, and a public speaker.

Shannon earned her medical degree from Columbia University, completed a residency in medicine and pediatrics at Duke University Medical Center and an infectious diseases fellowship at Emory University. After residency, Shannon joined the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service, assigned to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), initially as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and later as Director of CDC-Zimbabwe. Her career spans federal government (working under 4 different White House Administrations, and serving as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow), local/jurisdictional government (Senior Deputy Director, DC Department of Health), and private sector (VP and Director, Center for Health Systems and Solutions, Futures Group). Recently, Shannon was back at CDC as the Director of the Division of Global HIV & TB at the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention.

Nadia is a pediatrician, an internationally bestselling author, a first generation Afghan-American and a public speaker. She has written three novels for adults and two for children inspired by the history of Afghanistan and the ongoing struggles of families. She lives with her husband and four children in Potomac, Maryland and also serves as a board member for Aschiana Foundation. She has been a speaker at medical conferences, writers conferences, colleges, primary schools, fundraising galas and at the 2018 Women's March in DC. In 2018, she came in 3rd in a crowded race for the democratic primary nomination for the US House of Representatives seat (MD-6).