Ashwin Vasan

Early in his tenure as Commissioner, Vasan faced protests over COVID-19 related mandates and restrictions. On the evening of April 4, 2022, around two dozen protesters carrying anti-Joe Biden flags and anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate posters assembled around Vasan's house in Brooklyn. The protesters chanted "We! The People! Will Not Comply!". A group of the protesters later climbed the front steps of his house, banged on the front door, and screamed racial epithets and death threats. One of the protesters was carrying a hammer. Vasan was not home at the time, but his wife and two younger children were. The April 4 protest occurred after Vasan consulted with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which resulted in New York City delaying the removal of COVID-19 mask mandates for schoolchildren under the age of 5, citing rising cases of COVID-19. During another protest, one of the protesters was carrying a baseball bat. The protests have resulted in Vasan needing daily police protection from the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Despite this protection, protesters still occasionally show up at Vasan's house.

In 2019, Vasan was named president and CEO of Fountain House, a national mental health nonprofit that provides employment, education, housing, health and wellness programs to the mentally ill. Fountain House is notable for creating the Clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation, which has been replicated in over 300 locations in 30 countries. During his tenure, Vasan grew the organization from a local New York-based nonprofit to a national organization, supporting eight markets, and establishing a policy office based in Washington, DC, working on mental health reform, including funding for community based mental health systems, and mental health crisis response. During his tenure the organization nearly doubled in revenue.

In 2016, Vasan was appointed to serve as the founding executive director of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Health Access Equity Unit, a city-wide initiative aimed at improving the health and social welfare of marginalized communities in New York City.

Ashwin Vasan started his career working on HIV/AIDS, specifically, access to antiretroviral therapy in the developing world. He worked with Partners In Health in Boston, before moving to the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization, where he worked on the “3by5” Initiative, under Dr Jim Yong Kim, to expand access to HIV treatment, spending time in Switzerland, rural Uganda, Lesotho and Rwanda with PIH once again. After completing his internal medicine training at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, in 2014 Vasan joined the faculty of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and the Department of Medicine at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, where he works as an assistant professor of clinical population and family health and medicine. Vasan practices primary care medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Vasan earned a Master of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004. He graduated from University of Michigan Medical School in 2011 and completed a PhD from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 2015.

Ashwin Vasan (born November 15, 1980) is an American physician and epidemiologist serving as the 44th commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Vasan is also a public health professor and was most recently the president and CEO of Fountain House, a national mental health nonprofit.