Sheetal Khedkar Rao is a board-certified practicing primary care physician with 16 years of experience in adult chronic disease management. She is an assistant professor of Clinical Medicine in the Department of Academic Internal Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Rao is a 2022 Harvard Climate and Health Organizing Fellow, a 2023 University of Colorado Climate and Health Science Policy Fellow, a 2024 UIC Teaching Sustainability Initiative Fellow, and a 2025 OpEd Public Voices Fellow. She is also a 2022 recipient of the American Public Health Association Climate Leadership Award. As adjunct faculty in the division of Environmental and Occupational Health at UIC's School of Public Health, Rao teaches a course on the health impacts of climate change. Her work with UIC's NIH Center for Climate and Health Excellence has focused on youth climate education, heat vulnerability, and health benefits of nature-based solutions. Outside of the clinic and classroom, Rao collaborates with local communities to increase tree canopy and native greenspaces around the Chicago region. This work is done through her nonprofit organization Nordson Green Earth—a member of the National Academy of Medicine's Climate Communities Network. Rao obtained her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, her M.D. and Masters in Physiology at Georgetown, and completed internal medicine residency at UIC. She lives in the Western suburbs of Chicago with her husband and teenage sons.