Donna E. Shalala
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services

Donna E. Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been a scholar, teacher, and a public administrator for her entire career. In 1992, Business Week named her one of the top five managers in higher education. As Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 - 1993, she was the first woman to head a Big Ten University.

Prior to that, Shalala served as president of Hunter College for eight years, and as an Assistant Secretary at HUD during the Carter Administration. She has taught political science at Syracuse, Columbia, the City University of New York and Wisconsin.

Secretary Shalala is one of the nation's foremost advocates for children and families. For more than a decade, she served on the board of the Children's Defense Fund, becoming its chair in 1992. Shalala also served as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in Iran from 1962-1964. Most recently, she co-chaired the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

In addition, Dr. Shalala is leading the Administration's effort to meet the needs of all Americans by spearheading initiatives in preschool immunization, women's health, biomedical research, welfare, reform, health insurance reform, protecting children from tobacco, and AIDS research, treatment, and prevention.

Moreover, Secretary Shalala is developing new partnerships with the entertainment, media, and sports industries to solve our most pressing health and social problems. She has enlisted the support of TV producers and writer, movie industry executives, professional sports leagues, and athletes like the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team., to use their enormous access into America homes to inform as well as to entertain.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Nominated: January 20, 1993
Sworn in: January 22, 1993
Born: February 14, 1941, Cleveland, Ohio
B.A.: Western College for Women, 1962
Ph.D.: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1970