Carmen Coles is the Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Global Health. Prior to this role, she served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition at USAID. She managed the budget, staff, and programs for the Agency’s efforts to prevent child and maternal deaths in more than 25 countries. As a result of her leadership on the portfolio, she was awarded the Michael K. White Award in 2022, which recognizes one employee across all of USAID annually whose creativity, courage, and persistence result in improving the lives of women and children. Ms. Coles also represented the United States on the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), a public-private partnership that aims to expand global access to new and underutilized vaccines. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she supported USAID’s early efforts to work with other U.S. federal agencies and with global partners to accelerate access to the COVID-19 vaccines. Additionally, Ms. Coles co-led USAID’s Repositioning Family Planning initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, which aimed to increase both political and financial commitment to family planning among policymakers and other key stakeholders.
Prior to joining USAID, Ms. Coles served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, West Africa. She also completed a 15-month fellowship at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. During Ms. Cole's White House fellowship, she led international engagement on President Biden’s Federal Sustainability Plan, which aims to achieve net-zero emissions from federal government operations by no later than 2050.
Ms. Coles received her Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale University.