Press Release - President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions

WASHINGTON – Today, President Biden announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to serve in key roles:

• Nancy Duff Campbell, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
• Joyce M. Johnson, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
• Peter V. Neffenger, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
• Maritza Sáenz Ryan, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
• Andrew N. Cedar, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
• Peter A. Selfridge, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
• Leland Ware, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
• Shakuntla L. Bhaya, Member, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
• Neil H. MacBride, Member, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
• David E. Price, Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
• Randa Elias Arabo, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
• Mary Ann Walker Aguirre, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
• Christine M. Warnke, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts

Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
The Board of Visitors to the Coast Guard Academy reviews and makes recommendations on the operation of the Coast Guard Academy and visits the Academy annually to review its operation. Specifically, the Board reviews the state of morale and discipline, recruitment and retention, curriculum, instruction, fiscal affairs, and other matters relating to the Academy that the Board determines appropriate.

Nancy Duff Campbell, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
Nancy Duff Campbell is a founder and Co-President Emerita of the National Women's Law Center. For over 50 years, she has used litigation, legislative and administrative advocacy, and education to expand opportunities for women, with a particular emphasis on issues affecting low-income women and their families. She has been an appointee of the Secretary of Defense to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, of Congress to the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare, and of United Nations officials as the sole North American representative to the U.N. Conference on Implications for Women of the Global Financial Crisis. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan and Princeton University, and she is the recipient of several awards and honors. She has been quoted and otherwise featured in numerous media outlets and books, and her oral history is included in the American Bar Association's Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project, the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit's Oral Histories of the D.C. Circuit's Courts, and the Veteran Feminists of America's Pioneer Histories Project. Prior to her long career at the National Women's Law Center, she was a law professor, first at Catholic University and then at Georgetown University, and an attorney at the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law (now the National Center for Law and Economic Justice). She is a graduate of Barnard College of Columbia University and New York University School of Law.

Joyce M. Johnson, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
Dr. Joyce M. Johnson is a physician who has dedicated her professional life to public service. Her last active-duty position was Director, Health and Safety ("surgeon general") of the U.S. Coast Guard. As a two-star admiral, she was the first woman to serve the Coast Guard as a flag officer. Her prior government positions include senior leadership and public health positions at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Institutes of Health/SEH, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Johnson combines her professional training with philanthropic work serving on the Board of the University of Maryland Medical System, a multi-hospital $5 billion corporation. She served on the Board of the Military Officers Association of America and various other boards, commissions, and committees. She authored over 200 publications for lay and professional audiences, including the book Lizard Bites and Street Riots – Travel Emergencies and Your Health, Safety and Security. She has provided disaster relief and other health care services on all seven continents. Johnson is a health care consultant focusing on the maritime sector, and serves as the Chief Medical Advisor to the National Science Foundation's Antarctic and Arctic research programs (by contract). Johnson is an osteopathic physician board certified in Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology, and Psychiatry. She held the rank of Professor at Georgetown University, and has received eight honorary doctoral degrees.

Peter V. Neffenger, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
Vice Admiral Peter V. Neffenger, USCG, Retired, was appointed in 2015 by President Obama to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a position he held until January 2017. Prior to this he enjoyed a distinguished 34-year career in the United States Coast Guard, culminating in his appointment as the service's 29th Vice Commandant. He was the Deputy National Incident Commander for the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest and most complex in U.S. history. He is a recognized expert in national security, crisis leadership, and organizational transformation. His transformation of the TSA led to him being named one of the 25 most influential business travel executives of 2016 by Business Travel News. He is a Trustee of Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, and serves on a number of corporate, non-profit, and advisory boards, including the Marine Board of the National Academies of Science. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University. He holds an MPA from Harvard University, an MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, an MA in Business Management from Central Michigan University, and a BA from Baldwin Wallace University, from which he also received an Honorary Doctor of Public Service. He is a two-time recipient of the Department of Homeland Security's Distinguished Service Medal, in addition to numerous military awards.

Maritza Sáenz Ryan, Member, Board of Visitors to the United States Coast Guard Academy
Brigadier General Maritza Sáenz Ryan, U.S. Army, Retired, served as the Professor & Head of the Department of Law, U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, until her retirement from the Army. A member of the USMA Class of 1982, she was commissioned as a Field Artillery officer and assigned to the 1st Armored Division Artillery, Nuremberg, West Germany. Under the Judge Advocate General's Corps Funded Legal Education Program, she received her Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt Law School, Order of the Coif, in 1988. She holds a Master of Laws in Military Law from the Army Judge Advocate General's School and a Master of Arts in National Security & Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.

Ryan's assignments include deployment as Brigade Legal Counsel, 18th Airborne Corps Artillery, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm; Senior Trial Counsel (Criminal Prosecution) and Senior Trial Defense Counsel, Fort Sill Field Artillery Center & School; Chief of Military Justice and Officer-in-Charge of the Fort Shafter Branch Office (Civil Law), 25th Infantry Division; and Deputy Staff Judge Advocate and Staff Judge Advocate (Command General Counsel), Fort Sam Houston. Military awards and decorations include Airborne and Air Assault badges, the Field Artillery's Honorable Order of St. Barbara, the South West Asia Service Medal, and the Distinguished Service Medal.

Ryan has taught Constitutional & Military Law, Military Justice, and Jurisprudence & Legal Theory, and has published and presented in the areas of Law and Leadership, the Law of Armed Conflict, and Military Justice. She is a Leadership Consultant with Team Catalyzer.

Commission on Presidential Scholars
The Commission on Presidential Scholars is a group of eminent private citizens appointed by the President to select and honor the Presidential Scholars. Commissioners are selected from across the country, representing the fields of education, medicine, law, social services, business, and other professions. The Commissioners make the final selection of the 161 Presidential Scholars. The Scholars demonstrate exceptional accomplishments in academics, the arts, career and technical education, and an outstanding commitment to public service.

Andrew N. Cedar, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
Andrew N. Cedar has nearly two decades of experience across the public and private sectors. He is currently a partner at Long Ridge, a growth equity firm with over $1.75 billion in assets under management, where he invests in fast-growing companies in the financial and enterprise technology sectors and serves on portfolio company boards of directors. Previously, Cedar was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and later worked directly for the firm's Global Managing Partner. At McKinsey, he advised corporations and governments in the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

From 2009-2013, Cedar was a member of the Obama-Biden Administration's foreign policy and national security team. He served as Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council at the White House and as a senior advisor at the State Department. Cedar was also a member of the presidential transition teams for both Barack Obama in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020. Cedar was on the founding team of National Security Action, an advocacy organization dedicated to advancing American global leadership and offering a strong, progressive vision for U.S. foreign policy, where he later served as a senior advisor.

Cedar has a BA in Political Science from Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude), an MPhil in International Relations from University of Cambridge (UK), and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has been named a Young Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum. He resides in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two children.

Peter A. Selfridge, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
Peter A. Selfridge is Executive Vice President and Global Head of Government and Public Affairs for SAP. In this role Selfridge is responsible for promoting technological transformation in the public sector and the role played by digital technologies in inspiring positive economic and societal development around the world.

Selfridge was formerly U.S. Chief of Protocol during the second term of the Obama-Biden Administration, serving as the President's Ambassador to the foreign diplomatic corps posted to the United States. Prior to that, he served as President Obama's Advance and Operations Director in the White House, a position he managed for Vice President Biden during the first two years of the Administration. He previously worked for U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), and as a Scheduling Assistant to President Clinton. Selfridge also served on the Gore, Kerry, and Obama presidential campaigns, and was most recently an adviser on the Biden-Harris Transition team.

Earlier in his career, Selfridge worked for the City of New York as a Policy Advisor, and later at Citigate Communications and Rendezvous Consulting where he developed and executed clients' communications and public affairs strategies. He previously worked at the William J. Clinton Foundation as the organization's city director in Los Angeles. In addition to a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Iowa, Selfridge holds a master's degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. He is a native of Minnesota and is married to Parita Shah. The couple lives in Paris with their young daughter.

Leland Ware, Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars
Leland Ware has been the Louis L. Redding Professor and Chair for the Study of Law and Public Policy at the University of Delaware since 2000. Before his present appointment, he was a professor at St. Louis University School of Law. He was a visiting professor at Boston College Law School and at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. Ware was University Counsel at Howard University, and for the five years prior to his position at Howard, he was a Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, in Washington, D.C. He had previously practiced with a private firm in Atlanta, Georgia, and with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Ware's research focuses on various aspects of Civil Rights law. He has authored more than 100 publications consisting of books, academic journal articles, book chapters, essays, book reviews, editorials, and other publications in academic journals and other publications. Professor Ware has organized several academic symposia and professional programs and hosted many distinguished lectures.

Ware is a co-author, with Robert Cottrol and Raymond Diamond, of Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture and the Constitution. He is the editor of Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience (co-edited with Robert L. Hayman with a Foreword by then-Vice President Joe Biden). His most recent book, A Century of Segregation: Race, Class, and Disadvantage, was published in 2018. He has lectured and made other presentations to numerous audiences in the United States, Europe, and Africa. Ware is a graduate of Fisk University and Boston College Law School.

Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) is an independent federal agency charged with convening expert representatives from the public and private sectors to recommend improvements to administrative process and procedure. ACUS initiatives promote efficiency, participation, and fairness in the promulgation of federal regulations and in the administration of federal programs. The ten-member ACUS Council is composed of government officials and private citizens.

Shakuntla L. Bhaya, Member, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
Shakuntla L. Bhaya is a co-owner of a statewide Delaware law firm, Law Offices of Doroshow, Pasquale, Krawitz & Bhaya. Bhaya's practice focuses on representing individuals who are seriously injured as a result of businesses and people making unsafe decisions. For the past seven years, Bhaya has been a member of Governor Carney's Judicial Nominating Commission. In addition to practicing law, Bhaya is very involved in Delaware politics. She is currently a member of the Delaware Democratic Party's State Executive Committee. Bhaya, past President of the Delaware Trial Lawyers Association, continues to be involved in protecting consumers' 7th Amendment Right to a jury trial and access to courts. Bhaya is also a member of the American Association for Justice and American Civil Liberties Union, and is actively involved in helping pro-choice democratic women become elected to office. Bhaya was actively involved in fighting for rights for the LGBTQ+ community and helping members of her community to adopt children, seek legal redress when discriminated in the workplace, and permit people to marry. Bhaya is the first South Asian Indian to be admitted to the Delaware Bar Association. Bhaya continues to work towards diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal profession and in politics. Bhaya is a graduate from Northeastern University School of Law.

Neil H. MacBride, Member, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
Neil H. MacBride currently serves as General Counsel of the Department of Treasury. MacBride serves as the chief legal officer of the Department and the principal legal advisor to the Secretary of Treasury and senior leaders on a wide range of issues relating to domestic finance, terrorism finance, financial crimes enforcement, and international economic affairs. MacBride previously served as a litigation partner at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. Before entering private practice, MacBride spent more than 15 years as a government official focusing on law enforcement, national security, financial enforcement, and complex civil litigation matters. He served in the Obama-Biden Administration, first as an Associate Deputy Attorney General and then as the Senate-confirmed United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia overseeing all criminal enforcement and civil litigation on behalf of the United States. MacBride earlier served as Chief Counsel to then-Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Earlier in his career, MacBride served as General Counsel to the Business Software Alliance, in private practice at a Washington, D.C. law firm, and clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Henry Morgan of the Eastern District of Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and Houghton College. MacBride lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Christina Jackson MacBride and their three children.

J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board supervises the Fulbright Program and certain programs authorized by the Fulbright-Hays Act and for the purpose of selecting students, scholars, teachers, trainees, and other persons to participate in the educational exchange programs. Appointed by the President, the 12-member Board meets quarterly in Washington, DC. The Board establishes worldwide policies and procedures for the Program and issues an annual report on the state of the Program.

David E. Price, Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
David E. Price is a fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Duke University. From 1987-94 and 1997-2022 he represented the Triangle region of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Price successively chaired the subcommittees on Homeland Security, and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development. He initiated and chaired the House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan commission to strengthen legislative institutions, engaging peer-to-peer with legislators in emerging democracies.

A native of Erwin, Tennessee, Price earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his BDiv and PhD from Yale University. He has taken The Congressional Experience through four editions and has written three other books and numerous articles on American politics and political institutions, political thought, ethics, and foreign policy.

President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
Established in 1958 by President Eisenhower, the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts (PACA) has played a valuable role in sustaining the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Cultural Center. Members of the Committee are civic and cultural leaders who are selected by the President of the United States to serve as representatives in their own communities for the Kennedy Center. The Center considers PACA appointees to be "Ambassadors for the Arts." Acting as a national network for the Center, PACA helps to broaden the Center's influence and extend its vision across the country. The Committee serves as a national forum, giving its members the opportunity to share with the Kennedy Center their views on the Center's artistic programming.

Randa Elias Arabo, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
Randa Elias Arabo is a political activist and social entrepreneur who resides in San Diego, California. An immigrant to the United States from Baghdad, Iraq, her family escaped war-torn Iraq in 1991 for fear of religious persecution. After three years of moving country to country, they arrived in the United States in 1994. Arabo developed her hard work ethic at an early age by helping her family with their small business after school. A San Diego State University alumna, Arabo earned a BS in Applied Arts and Sciences in Business Administration (Management) in 2014. As a wife and mother of four children, she integrates family life with her roles as a philanthropist and social entrepreneur, focusing on aiding the less fortunate and being the best mother she can be. Her career is marked by a series of contributions to various groups, showcasing her innovative thinking and intelligence. Arabo resides in San Diego with her husband Mark and four children: Audrey, Vincent, Isaac, and Mark Jr.

Mary Ann Walker Aguirre, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
Mary Ann Walker Aguirre is a founder, entrepreneur, Spanish-speaking Latina, on-air spokesperson, and a long-time advocate of strengthening U.S. and Latin America relations. She has a 35-year track record successfully building, operating, and scaling businesses. She founded Walker Advertising LLC, a leading direct response advertising agency serving the U.S. Latino market and legal industry. While CEO, her company invested more than $500 million in national Spanish Language media, providing legal access to Latinos in U.S. through its leading brands, Los Defensores LLC and The Defenders at 1-800-THELAW2. Together they own the largest market share in the U.S. She currently serves as the Managing Partner in her national law firm, WH Legal Group LLP, as a non-attorney responsible for generating hundreds of cases via mass media and Chief Strategy Officer for Walker Firm LLP.

As a volunteer for the Biden-Harris campaign, she served on Biden's Latin America Foreign Policy Team and contributed her expertise to spearhead a national media campaign to ensure a historic Latino voter turnout, including the development of Spanish language public service announcements, which aired over 600 Spanish language stations nationally. In 2022, Walker served as Senior Advisor of The Atlantic Council for the Summit of the Americas.

Throughout her career, she has served on numerous boards to support the Latino community including serving on the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Latin American Program; the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center; Vice Chair of the Pacific Council's Mexico Initiative; and on the Board of Directors for Loyola Marymount University, Providence Little Company of Mary, ALTAMED and co-chair of LATAM group for Women Execs on Boards.

Christine M. Warnke, Member, President's Advisory Committee on the Arts
Dr. Christine Warnke is a global business executive with particular expertise in international humanitarian initiatives and economic development. Her 35+ year professional career reflects a lifelong dedication to public service, including work in the Office of the Senate Majority Leader and a Presidential appointment to a U.S. Senate-confirmed position on the Board of the National Institute of Building Sciences. Her commitment to the arts and humanities includes her service on the Board of the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution as well as decades-long work in promoting the arts and humanities on local, national, and international platforms.

Most recently, Warnke served in the Executive Office of Mayor Muriel Bowser and as Chief of International Affairs and Protocol Officer for the District of Columbia. She was also elected to serve as the State Representative for Washington, DC for Sister Cities International, which is dedicated to enriching people-to-people cooperation worldwide.

Her commitment to global women's and children's issues has led her to helping African women and girls gain greater economic opportunities, and she has also served on a number of international nonprofit boards. Her work has provided assistance to orphanages in Romania, fostered a national children's identification program in Angola, and provided safe drinking water access to Muslim Indian village women. Warnke was also the founding President of a U.S. ethnic-American professional women's organization. She earned her PhD in American Studies at the University of Maryland, and was subsequently awarded Alumna of the Year from the College of Public Health