Mandy Cohen

Mandy Krauthamer Cohen (born September 17, 1978) is an American internist, public health official, and healthcare executive serving as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since July 10, 2023.

She was previously the executive vice president at Aledade and chief executive officer of Aledade Care Solution, a healthcare company.

Cohen earned a bachelor's degree in policy analysis and management from Cornell University, a medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine, and a graduate degree in public health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Cohen attended Lenox Elementary School, graduated with high honors from Baldwin Senior High School, and was awarded a Baldwin Foundation for Education scholarship in 1996.

She earned a bachelor's degree in policy analysis and management from Cornell University (2000).

While she was a medical school student in 2004, she took up a position with the American College of Physicians on their National Council of Student Members.

In her residency, she served on Massachusetts General Hospital's committees for primary care, quality assurance, and recruitment.

She later served as Co-Director for the Health Policy Elective at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a northeast representative for the American College of Physicians' National Council of Associates.

She earned a medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine (2005), and a graduate degree in public health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2004).

She trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

After completing her residency in Boston, Cohen moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs as the Deputy Director of Comprehensive Women's Health Services from 2008 to 2009.

In 2008 she was a founding member and National Outreach Director for the grassroots organization Doctors for Obama, later renamed Doctors for America.

She served as the organization's policy director and later as Executive Director.

In 2013 she was hired as a senior advisor by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, to assist in implementing policies for Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as the Federally Facilitated Marketplace under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Cohen was later appointed as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff Services at the agency, and from 2014 to 2015 served as Acting Director of the agency's Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

In 2014, while eight months pregnant, Cohen advocated for maternity coverage in the Affordable Care Act before the United States Congress.

From 2017 to 2021, she served as the Health Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Before that, Cohen was the chief operating officer and chief of staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services during the Obama Administration.

She also served as the Deputy Director of Comprehensive Women's Health Services at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, and is a founding member and former executive director of Doctors for America.

In January 2017 Cohen was appointed Health Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), an organization with 17,000 employees and an annual budget of $20 billion, by Governor Roy Cooper.

As secretary, she oversaw 16,000 department employees and dealt with multiple health crises in North Carolina including the Opioid epidemic, GenX in drinking water, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cohen was listed as one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare in 2019.

In 2019 she criticized the North Carolina House of Representatives' proposed budget for 2019–21, arguing that it harmed North Carolinians by making massive cuts to the Department, potentially impacting "everything from health inspections of restaurants to the safety of drinking water to child protective services."

In February 2019 Modern Healthcare named Cohen as one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare.

In 2020, she was awarded the Leadership in Public Health Practice Award by Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the American Medical Association presented her with the AMA Award for Outstanding Government Service.

In 2021 she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Cohen was born to Marshall and Susan Krauthamer, has two younger siblings, and is Jewish.

She grew up on the south shore of Long Island in the Baldwin hamlet in Hempstead, New York.

Her mother worked as a hospital nurse practitioner in emergency medicine, and inspired her to pursue a medical career.

Her father was a junior high guidance counselor in the New York City school system.

When she was 12 years old, she had her bat mitzvah at her family's Reform synagogue.

In 2020, Cohen was mentioned as a potential pick for United States Secretary of Health and Human Services under President-elect Joe Biden.

Cohen navigated the political divide over Medicaid in North Carolina, with Democratic Governor Cooper wanting to expand it under the Affordable Care Act and the Republican-majority North Carolina General Assembly opposing such measures.

She helped lead North Carolina through a transition from fee-for-service Medicaid to a model contracted by the state with private insurance companies that are paid pre-determined rates to provide health services.

Cohen spearheaded Healthy Opportunities, an initiative testing the impact of providing high-need Medicaid enrollees with housing, food, transportation, and interpersonal safety interventions with the goal of improving public health and reducing costs.

The initiative was funded with $650 million from state and federal Medicaid, authorized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

She implemented the Opioid Action Plan, which uses $45.5 million in grant funding to fight opioid misuse in the state.

The plan also updated the Controlled Substance Reporting System, helping doctors identify patients at risk of misusing opioids.

Cohen's plan led to a decline in overdose deaths in North Carolina for the first time in over a decade.

She led the Early Childhood Action Plan, focusing on improving health conditions of children from birth to age eight.