- Visiting Scholar
Biography
Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar is the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, he was a faculty member at Stanford University for two decades and served two U.S. presidents at the White House and in federal agencies. He is a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.
At Stanford he was the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law and (by courtesy) Political Science. He directed the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and previously, co-directed its Center for International Security and Cooperation. He also chaired the boards of Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and its Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. During nearly seven years on California’s highest court while continuing to teach at Stanford, he wrote opinions addressing separation of powers and federalism, policing and criminal justice, democracy, technology and privacy, international agreements, and climate and environmental policy among other issues, and led the court system’s efforts to better meet the needs of millions of limited English speakers.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cuéllar has published widely on American institutions and public law, international affairs, political economy, and technology’s impact on law and government. In the first term of the Obama administration, he led the White House Domestic Policy Council’s teams working on civil and criminal justice, public health, immigration, and regulatory reform. He also co-chaired the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, and earlier, co-chaired the Obama Biden Transition Immigration Working Group. He began his career at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the second term of the Clinton administration.
He chairs the board of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and serves on Harvard University’s primary governing board (the Harvard Corporation). He served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Social and Ethical Implications of Computing Research and was a presidential appointee to the Council of the U.S. Administrative Conference. 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. He and his wife, Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, have two children.
Education
- AB Harvard University 1993
- MA (political science) Stanford University 1996
- JD Yale Law School 1997
- PhD (political science) Stanford University 2000
Courses
Affiliations & Honors
- The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation – Board Chair
- Harvard University — Fellow of the Harvard Corporation (President & Fellows of Harvard College)
- Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute — Advisory Board
- Stanford Seed – Advisory Board
- American Law Institute – Council
- Council on Foreign Relations – Life Member
- Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences – Board Chair (2016-2021)
- 2019 Yale University — Castle Lecturer on Ethics, Politics, and Economics
- 2017 Stanford University — Commencement Speaker (126th Commencement)
- 2017 American Academy in Berlin — Lloyd Cutler Distinguished Visitor
- 2016 Santa Clara University — Doctor of Laws (Honorary)
- 2012 Oxford University — Barbara Herrell Bond Distinguished Lecturer