Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar is the tenth President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A scholar of transnational regulatory and security problems, American institutions, and technology’s impact on law and government, he served as a justice on the Supreme Court of California. Previously, he was the Stanley Morrison Professor at Stanford Law School and directed Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He served two U.S. presidents in a variety of federal government roles, including as the Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy in the Obama administration.
Before serving on California’s highest court, Cuéllar spent fifteen years on the academic faculty of Stanford University and more than a decade in leadership positions at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford’s primary hub for research on international affairs. After leading its Honors Program in International Security, he became co-director of the Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and ultimately served as the Institute’s director, overseeing programs on international security and development, contemporary Asia and Europe, global health, and food security and the environment.
During his tenure at FSI, he grew the Institute’s faculty and resources on nuclear security; launched university-wide initiatives on cybersecurity and global development; supported new research in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; and expanded the Institute’s focus on migration, climate, and global health.
While serving in the Obama White House, he led efforts at the Domestic Policy Council to address civil and criminal justice reform, public health, immigration, and transnational crime. He worked on successful enactment of the bipartisan Food Safety Modernization Act and the Fair Sentencing Act, repeal of the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy, and development of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. He was also involved in handling the federal response to the H1N1 flu, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and food contamination emergencies.
He then co-chaired the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, and was a presidential appointee to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States. As a California Supreme Court justice, he’s decided cases on criminal justice, climate change, international treaty obligations, separation of powers, and privacy and technology, and oversaw reforms of the California court system’s operations to better meet the needs of millions of limited-English speakers.
Cuéllar has extensive experience in philanthropy, academia, and technology policy. He co-authored the first ever report on the use of artificial intelligence across federal agencies and serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Social and Ethical Implications of Computing Research.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cuéllar is the author of Governing Security: The Hidden Origins of American Security Agencies (2013) and has published widely on scholarly and policy-oriented topics. He currently serves on the board of the Hewlett Foundation and is a member of the Harvard Corporation.
Born in Matamoros, Mexico, he grew up primarily in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, and received a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.