Alumni Run for State, National Office

Two VP&S graduates are campaigning this year for seats in Congress, and another alumnus is running for governor of Michigan.

Jim Maxwell’75 is running for Congress in New York’s 25th Congressional district. He is a native of Monroe County and a lifelong resident of East Rochester, where he has practiced neurosurgery since 1982.

Shannon Hader’95 is running for Congress in Washington state’s 8th Congressional district. She is a fifth-generation native of the region, where she grew up on her great-grandfather’s farmland. Most recently, Shannon was director of the Division of Global HIV & TB at the CDC in Atlanta.

Abdul El-Sayed’14 is running for governor of Michigan. He is a first-generation American, son of Egyptian immigrants who settled in Michigan. If elected, he would be the first Muslim-American ever elected a state governor and the youngest governor since 32-year-old Bill Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas in 1978. Most recently, Abdul was executive director of the Detroit Health Department.