Shailee Shah, MD, MS

Assistant Professor
Neuroimmunology Division

Dr. Shailee Shah is an Assistant Professor in the Neuroimmunology Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Due to her clinical and research expertise in the neuroimmunology of neuro-ophthalmology, she has a dual appointment to the Department of Ophthalmology. She is an autoimmune neurologist with expertise in the management of both inpatient and outpatient neuroimmunologic diseases, and participates in various research and educational initiatives.  Dr. Shah is also a faculty consultant within the Vanderbilt Undiagnosed Disease Program and consults on the diagnosis of rare neurological diseases. She is also clinically involved in improving and streamlining care for patients with antibody-mediated neurological diseases. 

Dr. Shah’s research interests include the characterization of paraneoplastic and autoimmune neurological diseases, particularly as they pertain to vision loss, and emerging and acute therapeutics in these disorders. She is one of the primary investigators on the first international, multi-center trial for NMDA-Receptor encephalitis. She is also interested in biomarkers and imaging characteristics of optic neuropathies due to multiple sclerosis and disorders such as MOGAD or NMOSD. She is an awardee and participant in the NeuroNEXT Fellowship Program. In addition to her appointments at VUMC, Dr. Shah is an external research collaborator for the Mayo Clinic.

She has authored several peer-reviewed articles in such publications as Neurology, Neurology Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry and Multiple Sclerosis Journal, and she has written several book chapters and review articles on paraneoplastic and autoimmune neurological diseases. She has given lectures on autoimmune neurological diseases at several national conferences.

Prior to her appointment at VUMC, Dr. Shah completed specialized fellowship training in Autoimmune Neurology and subsequently Multiple Sclerosis/Neuroimmunology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. During her time at Mayo, she also completed a Master’s in Clinical and Translational Sciences. She completed her residency at Northwestern McGaw Medical Center. She earned her M.D. from the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.