Michelle Morse, MD, MPH

Dr. Michelle Morse is the Acting Health Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She leads the agency’s work in bridging public health and health care to reduce health inequities and serves as a key liaison to clinicians and clinical leaders across New York City. She previously served as Deputy Commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness where she led place-based and cross-cutting health equity programs.

Dr. Morse is an internal medicine and public health doctor who works to achieve health equity through global solidarity, social medicine and anti-racism education and activism. She is a general internal medicine physician, part-time hospitalist at Kings County Hospital, co-founder of EqualHealth, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Morse’s continued commitment to advancing health equity and justice is informed by her experience in leadership roles as Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Partners In Heath, as a Soros Equality Fellow launching a global Campaign Against Racism and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow with the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2024, Dr. Morse was named a TIME100Next honoree.