As president and CEO of the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, Amie Shei helps transform community health through strategic funding initiatives addressing clean water access, transportation, and food security across the region.
Amie Shei, PhD, a USA Today Woman of the Year 2025 and Massachusetts’ Woman of the Year 2025, has charted a remarkable path from shy daughter of immigrants to influential public health advocate. Initially planning to become a doctor, Shei’s perspective transformed during her freshman year at Amherst College when she discovered a deeper calling in health policy and human rights.
Inspired by Dr. Paul Farmer’s work connecting health and human rights, Shei shifted course. After graduating with an English degree and briefly working at a Boston law firm, she found her direction after reading “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” Farmer’s biography by Tracy Kidder. This led her to pursue advanced degrees at Harvard, including fieldwork in Brazilian favelas that cemented her belief that health outcomes depend heavily on environmental and societal factors.
“When I was considering a career in medicine, I had a very narrow view of health care, believing that health depended on the care received from doctors,” Shei said in an interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Her realization that policy could impact more lives than treating patients individually became her guiding principle.
Since becoming president and CEO of the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts in 2022, Shei has directed millions in funding toward innovative local health initiatives. The foundation supports both short-term projects like a hydroponic mushroom farm addressing food insecurity and long-term “synergy” initiatives including rural transportation services, well-water testing programs, and mental health resources for adolescents.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Shei remains an avid runner who completed the New York City Marathon raising funds for maternal health. She lives with her husband, a U.S. Army veteran, and their two young children, who are beginning to understand her work’s importance after experiencing contaminated water in their own school.
“Access to safe, clean drinking water should not depend on where one lives in Massachusetts,” she said in the interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, advocating for legislation that would regulate private wells, after successfully supporting a state budget allocation to study well contamination.
Read the full article by Kinga Borondy in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette: Paving a path to accessible health care: Amie Shei is Massachusetts’ Woman of the Year 2025
Watch the video from 2024 where Dr. Shei talks about her work:
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