Dr. Okereke was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Johns Hopkins University. He attended Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He did his general surgery residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and his cardiothoracic residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Okereke is the current vice chairman of the Department of Surgery and chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Henry Ford Health. He is active in basic and outcomes research and has been awarded numerous NIH grants. He went to Haiti for disaster relief 1 week after the devastating earthquake that killed over 300,000 people in that country. Inspired by this trip, he established the Okereke Foundation in 2013. He also mentors underrepresented high school students and began a summer internship program for these students in 2016.