Carmen Coles Tull
United States Agency for International Development
2023 fellow
Carmen Coles Tull is a public policy strategist, coalition builder, and advocate who is committed to addressing the world’s most significant global health challenges. Ms. Tull has more than 20 years of experience managing and implementing global health programs worldwide.
She currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition (MCHN) at USAID. In this role, she manages 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 improves the lives of women and children. Ms. Tull also represented the United States on the Board of 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 within the interagency and global partners to accelerate access to COVID-19 vaccines. Before joining MCHN, Ms. Tull co-led USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health’s Repositioning Family Planning initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, which aimed to increase both political and financial commitment for family planning among policy makers and other key stakeholders.
She has a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale University. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa. As a White House Leadership Development Program Fellow, Ms. Tull is assigned to the White House Council on Environmental Quality.