Health Officer Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman, who led Anne Arundel through pandemic, leaving for Maryland Health Department

After almost four years as Anne Arundel County health officer, Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman is leaving for a state health department position.

Kalyanaraman will be deputy secretary for public health services at the Maryland Department of Health, a Friday news release said. His last day as county health officer is March 21.

During his tenure, Kalyanaraman led the county through several health crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to the ongoing opioid epidemic and gun violence after the 2018 Capital Gazette shooting.

“We all knew that Dr. Kalyanaraman was a superstar when we hired him, and he turned out to be exactly the leader that we needed,” Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman said in the release. “Dr. Kalyanaraman led with compassion, strength and brilliance, integrating public health into every corner of local governance, and leading our defense against a virus that took the lives of 1,255 county residents.”

Pittman’s office has not announced a new health officer but will share additional details “in the coming days,” the release said.

Before working for the county, Kalyanaraman was chief medical officer of Health Care for the Homeless based in Baltimore, where he worked for about seven years.

In his county role, Kalyanaraman aimed to expand the reach of the health department by embedding community health ambassadors into local and faith-based organizations. He established contact tracing and case management early in the pandemic and launched the Office of Health Equity and Racial Justice to identify and address health disparities along racial, income and geographical lines.

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In a February interview, Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for Anne Arundel County Pete Hill praised the department for its devotion to looking at policies and programs through an equity lens.

As substance abuse disorder has become more understood as a mental health issue than a criminal issue, Kalyanaraman focused on intervention programs to reach people at risk for drug use and offer more services to those in recovery. He’s also worked to address the county’s perspective on gun violence as a public health issue as well as a criminal issue. He created and implemented the Gun Violence Intervention Team that hosts public meetings and develops strategies to mitigate gun violence. He said this work on the response to the pandemic, behavioral health and improving outreach have been some of his proudest achievements in his time in the department.

“We’ve accomplished a lot, including responding to a global pandemic, that improved the health of all residents in Anne Arundel County, particularly those with the greatest needs,” Kalyanaraman said in the release. “I look forward to the opportunity to continue advancing public health at the state level.”

County officials, including second-term County Council member Allison Pickard, a Glen Burnie Democrat, said his expertise and adaptability made Kalyanaraman a particularly effective leader during some very challenging times and the state will gain a lot from his experience.

“Dr. Kalyanaraman’s knowledge and leadership has been invaluable over the last four years when we have had to make some tough decisions to ensure the resilience of our communities,” Pickard said.

For the two years preceding Kalyanaraman’s appointment in August 2019, the department went through multiple leadership changes, and had been searching for a permanent health officer since May 2017.