Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Burwell earlier served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sylvia Mary Burwell (Mathews; born June 23, 1965) is an American government and non-profit executive who has been the 15th president of American University since June 1, 2017.

Burwell is the first woman to serve as the university's president.

In 1982, she was a Youth For Understanding exchange student in Japan.

Mathews earned a Bachelor of Arts degree government from Harvard University in 1987.

She then enrolled at the University of Oxford, where she became a Rhodes Scholar at Worcester College, and, in her spare time, a rower.

She graduated from Oxford with a second bachelor's degree in philosophy, politics, and economics.

She has since been appointed as an honorary fellow of Worcester College.

While still in college, she served as an intern for West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall, as a governor's aide to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, and as a researcher for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign.

Mathews began her career in 1990 as an associate at the New York consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In 1992, Mathews joined the Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign and led the economic team for the president-elect.

Following Clinton's inauguration, Mathews, with Robert Rubin, helped establish the National Economic Council (NEC).

Burwell helped form the National Economic Council in 1993.

Burwell later served as Chief of Staff to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, Deputy White House Chief of Staff to Erskine Bowles, and finally, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

She served as staff director of the NEC from 1993 to 1995.

While Mathews was at NEC, the White House pushed for healthcare reform.

Mathews was among those in the administration who advocated for finding ways, apart from legislation, to curb healthcare costs.

When Rubin became secretary of the treasury in 1995, Mathews became his chief of staff.

She testified before a Senate committee during the Whitewater investigations regarding her search of Vince Foster's garbage and the fate of the documents she discovered.

Mathews told the committee she had been looking for an indication as to why Foster had committed suicide and denied ordering any documents destroyed.

In 1997 Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles recruited Mathews for deputy chief of staff after being impressed with her intelligence during an Oval Office meeting.

Mathews became one of two deputy chiefs of staff, serving alongside John Podesta.

She joined the Gates Foundation in 2001, at the end of the Clinton presidency.

Mathews was born and raised in Hinton, West Virginia, a small town with a population of approximately 3,000.

Her mother, Cleo (née Maroudas) Mathews, was a teacher who also served as Hinton's mayor from 2001 to 2009, and Dr.William Peter Mathews, an optometrist.

Her father presided over the local Episcopal Church when there was no minister.

Her maternal grandparents, Vasiliki (Mpakares) and Dennis N. Maroudas, were Greek immigrants, as were her paternal grandparents.

Her grandparents owned a sweet shop in Hinton.

Mathews has one older sister, four years her senior.

Mathews first showed an interest in politics while still in grade school, when she became involved with her best friend's father's campaign for county commissioner and Jay Rockefeller's first campaign for governor.

Mathews served as her student body president and played on her school's basketball team.

She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class.

She was chief operating officer and executive director before its reorganization in 2006.

Between her times in government, Burwell served as president of Walmart's charitable foundation focused on ending hunger, beginning in January 2012.

Burwell was earlier the president of the Global Development Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where her program focused on combating world poverty through agricultural development, financial services for the poor, and global libraries.

Previously, she was the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2013 to 2014.

A West Virginia native, Burwell first worked for the United States government in Washington, D.C., during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

President Barack Obama nominated Burwell on April 11, 2014.

Burwell's nomination was confirmed by the Senate on June 5, 2014, by a vote of 78–17.

She served as Secretary until the end of the Obama administration.