Meet Emily
Elected in 2018, Emily is a progressive Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates, with a strong professional background in public policy and advocacy. She spends her days fighting for patients to get access to needed healthcare, and to help lower the cost of prescription drugs, and her nights organizing neighbors and friends to advocate for policies that impact them at the local, state and federal levels. She is also a mother who believes that every child deserves access to a high-quality education, starting from pre-school. She has passed 19 bills into law since being elected to represent District 18 in the House of Delegates, serves on the House Appropriations Committee as the Chair of the Health and Social Services Subcommittee and a member of the Capital Budget subcommittee, and was nominated by the Speaker and elected by her peers to serve as the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Emily Shetty was born in Fairfax, VA to immigrant parents, and was raised by a single mother who was a small business owner. With the inspiration and encouragement of her mother, Emily began serving her community at age nine and received the local United Way’s “Community Hero” award years later in 2001, in recognition for her service to numerous local charities including Big Brothers, Big Sisters; the Arc of High Point (NC); the local public library; Habitat for Humanity; and several others.
With a law degree from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, Emily has continued serving her community in her professional life as well. She spent several years as Legislative Director to a progressive Democratic Member of Congress, Representative Ed Towns (D-NY), for whom she managed much of his domestic policy portfolio. Emily received the Every Life Foundation Rare Voice award for her work in paving the way for new therapies for rare disease patients.
Emily then served as Senior Director of Federal Legislative Affairs for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, where she advocated for cancer patients before Members of Congress and their staff. In that capacity, she engaged grassroots cancer patients and their families, training them on how to lobby Members of Congress to pass critical legislation that increased funding at NIH for pediatric cancer research, and lower the patient out-of-pocket costs for lifesaving medication.
Emily and her husband Ash, a recently naturalized citizen, live in Kensington with their elementary-aged son Ayden, who attends Montgomery County Public Schools.