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Leading the Local Pandemic Response

Before the pandemic, most Nashvillians couldn’t tell you who headed the city’s board of health. Then Mayor John Cooper appointed Dr. Alex Jahangir as the chair of the new Metro Coronavirus Task Force. Known for his straightforward and honest approach in daily news briefings, Alex brings his signature style to this discussion on leading the city’s pandemic response.

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Dr. Alex Jahangir

Chair
Metro Nashville Coronavirus Task Force

Dr. Alex Jahangir is a professor of orthopaedic surgery and medicine. Dr. Jahangir is an orthopaedic trauma surgeon, and director of the division of orthopaedic trauma at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Jahangir serves as the current chair of the Metropolitan Board of Health of Nashville and was named chair of the Metropolitan Nashville Coronavirus Task force in March of 2020 by Mayor Cooper. In this capacity, he has led the response to the Covid-19 epidemic for Nashville including the development and implementation of policies that have mitigated the spread of the virus in Nashville, increased access to testing and assessment for all in our community, established a robust public health infrastructure, and serves as a principal source of information to the public regarding the Covid-19 epidemic in Nashville.

At the age of six, Dr. Jahangir and his family immigrated to Nashville, TN where he went on to graduate from Martin Luther King Magnet High School. He received his Bachelor of Science from the George Washington University, his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Tennessee, and his Master of Management in Healthcare from the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis, TN, and his orthopaedic trauma fellowship at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN.

He is a founding board member of ThinkTennessee, a nonpartisan, think tank that empowers state and local leaders to act on pragmatic ideas that promote opportunity for Tennesseans. Dr. Jahangir is also the immediate past chair of the board of the Adventure Science Center. In addition to his community involvement, Dr. Jahangir was selected as a member of the 2017-2018 Leadership Tennessee program, as well as, a representative from Nashville to the 2018 Young American Leaders Program at Harvard Business School. Dr. Jahangir received the Nashville Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Spirit of the Region Award, and was recognized by Major League Soccer as a 2020 Community MVP for his service to the Nashville community, and a 2020 Nashville Business Journal Power 100. Dr. Jahangir resides in Nashville with his wife Helen, a speech-language pathologist, and their three daughters.