Ethan Heyman/The Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
The White House announced that President Biden will appoint Dr. Mandy Cohen, a former official in North Carolina, to be the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Unlike the last two people to serve as heads of the nation’s top federal public health agency, Cohen has experience running a government agency. From 2017 to 2022, she served as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, she held health-related jobs at two federal agencies.
“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, with a proven track record of protecting the health and safety of Americans,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.
She succeeds Dr. Rochelle Walensky, 54, who announced last month that she will be leaving at the end of June. Cohen’s start date has not yet been announced. Her appointment does not require Senate confirmation.
Walensky, a former infectious disease expert at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, took charge at the CDC in 2021 — about a year after the pandemic began.
Cohen, 44, will take charge after a difficult few years at the CDC, whose more than 12,000 staff are responsible for protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats.
The Atlanta-based federal agency has long been seen as a global leader in disease control and a trusted source of health information. But polls have shown eroding public trust, partly as a result of CDC errors in its handling of COVID-19 and partly because of political attacks and disinformation campaigns.
Walensky initiated a reorganization effort designed to make the agency smarter and improve its communications.
Cohen grew up on Long Island, New York. Her mother was a nurse practitioner. Cohen holds a medical degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University.
She was also an advocate. She was a founding member and former executive director of Physicians for America, which pushes to expand health insurance coverage and address racial and ethnic disparities. Another founder is Dr. Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General. The group was formed in the midst of an effort to organize doctors into politics and support Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy.
Cohen began working for the federal government in 2008 at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, where she served as Deputy Director of Women’s Health Services. She later held a series of federal jobs, many at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, rising to the position of COO.
In 2017, she took a Health and Human Services job in North Carolina. Cohen, a senior adviser to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, has been the face of her state’s coronavirus response, explaining risks and precautions while wearing a gold chain adorned with a charm of the Hebrew word for “life.”
Some residents dubbed her “The 3 W Lady” for her constant reminder to wear a mask, wash hands frequently, and keep distance from others. One man even wrote a country rock song praising it with the refrain: “Hang on Mandy, Mandy hang on.”
In 2020, Cohen refused to support President Trump’s demands to hold a full capacity Republican convention in Charlotte without wearing a mask. Her office later said it would accommodate the GOP by relaxing the state’s 10-person indoor gathering limit, but remained adamant on masks and social distancing. Trump eventually moved the main events from Charlotte.
Cohen resigned from the government post in late 2021, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family and seek new opportunities. She then held a leadership position at Aledade Inc. It is a Maryland-based consulting firm.
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