Stephanie Psaki is a senior fellow for global health and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is a leading expert on health security and the intersection of global health, U.S. foreign policy, and national security, with two decades of experience spanning the White House, federal agencies, and international research and program management.
Psaki previously served as the inaugural U.S. coordinator for global health security at the National Security Council (NSC)—a position mandated by Congress—where she directed the U.S. government’s whole-of-government response to some of the most consequential biological threats of the past decade. In that role, she led implementation of the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy, spearheaded the U.S. government’s $500 million response to the Central African mpox outbreak, and coordinated the U.S. government’s engagement in the Pandemic Treaty and International Health Regulations negotiations. She also served as director for global health response at the NSC, where she coordinated U.S. global health policy—including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, maternal and child health, and U.S. engagement with the World Health Organization—and oversaw the largest-ever replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, mobilizing $15.7 billion from governments, the private sector, and philanthropy.
Prior to the NSC, Psaki served as senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Global Affairs, where she led U.S. initiatives on reproductive health, human rights, and climate and health. Earlier in her career, she spent nearly a decade at the Population Council, where she cofounded and scaled the GIRL Center—a global applied research center focused on adolescent health and well-being. She has also held research and practice positions at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center, Partners in Health, and FHI 360.
Psaki has written on global health security, population health, and U.S. foreign policy in the Atlantic, Time magazine, STAT News, Vox, Health Affairs, and other leading outlets, and her research has been published in top academic journals, including the British Medical Journal and the Lancet. She is a distinguished senior fellow at the Brown University School of Public Health and a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. She also chairs the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition’s board of directors.
Psaki holds a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an MA from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a BA from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.
