Sarah Mendelson
Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy, Head of Heinz College in DC, Carnegie Mellon University
Sessions: Closing Plenary (Day 2 Afternoon)
Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy, Head of Heinz College in DC, Carnegie Mellon University
Sessions: Closing Plenary (Day 2 Afternoon)
Ambassador Sarah E. Mendelson is Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and Head of CMU’s Heinz College in DC. She previously served as the US Representative to the UN’s ECOSOC. There she led on international development, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. Prior to her appointment, she served as a DAA at USAID from 2010-2014 where she was the Agency lead on democracy, human rights, and governance.
A long time policy entrepreneur, she has spent twenty-five years working on development and human rights as a scholar and a practitioner. She spent over a decade as a senior adviser and the inaugural director of the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS. She also worked as a senior fellow in CSIS’s Russia and Eurasia Program overseeing focus groups, public opinion surveys, and social marketing campaigns in Russia. Her current work centers on the Sustainable Development Goals. At CMU, she co-chairs the University’s Sustainability Initiative.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the editorial board of International Security. The author of over 70 scholarly and public policy publications, Ambassador Mendelson received her BA in history from Yale and her PhD in political science from Columbia.
A long time policy entrepreneur, she has spent twenty-five years working on development and human rights as a scholar and a practitioner. She spent over a decade as a senior adviser and the inaugural director of the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS. She also worked as a senior fellow in CSIS’s Russia and Eurasia Program overseeing focus groups, public opinion surveys, and social marketing campaigns in Russia. Her current work centers on the Sustainable Development Goals. At CMU, she co-chairs the University’s Sustainability Initiative.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the editorial board of International Security. The author of over 70 scholarly and public policy publications, Ambassador Mendelson received her BA in history from Yale and her PhD in political science from Columbia.
