WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve in key roles:
- Chris Saunders, Nominee for Federal Co-Chair of the Northern Border Regional Commission
- Corey Wiggins, Nominee for Federal Co-Chair of the Delta Regional Authority
- Summer Mersinger, Nominee for Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- Caroline Pham, Nominee for Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- Edward Gabriel, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
- Nathalie Rayes, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
- Mary Swig, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
In addition, the President has appointed Glenda Glover as Vice Chair of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Chris Saunders, Nominee for Federal Co-Chair of the Northern Border Regional Commission
Chris Saunders has served for nearly two decades on the staff of United States Senator Patrick Leahy. For the past decade, he has been a member of Senator Leahy’s Vermont office as a Field Representative, where he has engaged with Vermont communities on community and economic development, transportation, and telecommunications policy. From 2002 to 2011, Saunders held a variety of legislative roles in the Senator’s Washington D.C. office, focusing on housing, health care, education, and domestic appropriations. An avid hiker, skier, and angler, Saunders was raised in Middlebury, Vermont, attended Bowdoin College, and currently resides in Burlington, Vermont with his wife and two children.
Corey Wiggins, Nominee for Federal Co-Chair of the Delta Regional Authority
Growing up in rural Mississippi, Dr. Corey Wiggins is driven by a mission to serve the community. This mission has served as a guiding principle as Executive Director of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP. Over his diverse career, Dr. Wiggins has focused on creating equitable opportunities. Previously, Dr. Wiggins served as Senior Vice President of Policy at Hope Enterprise Corporation and Hope Credit Union. He also served as Director of the Hope Policy Institute, where he focused on strengthening communities, building assets, and improving lives in economically distressed parts of the Mid-South. He has served as a public policy professional as a Barbara Jordan Health Policy Fellow in the United States Senate, and as a policy analyst for the Mississippi State Legislature. Dr. Wiggins has also held the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at Jackson State University.
Dr. Wiggins completed his undergraduate studies at Alcorn State University. He received a Master of Science in Public Health with an emphasis in Health Policy and a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Additionally, he has a certificate of nonprofit leadership from Boston College. Dr. Wiggins has also furthered his training through fellowships with the Kaiser Family Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Summer Mersinger, Nominee for Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Summer Mersinger has over 17 years of federal government service, spending the last two years at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission where she served as chief of staff to Commissioner Dawn D. Stump and as the director of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. Prior federal service included 15 years working on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives and the Senate for her home state Congressman and then Senator, John Thune from South Dakota.
A native of South Dakota who grew up in a farm family where row crops such as wheat, sunflowers, corn and soybeans are still grown and harvested by her immediate family members, Mersinger received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 1999. An internship with the late Congressman Jim Ramstad from Minnesota opened the door to her career on Capitol Hill, where she returned after graduation and started answering phones for her home state congressman. A few years after the start of her career, Mersinger decided to pursue a law degree and attended evening classes at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. where she received her law degree in 2007. Mersinger is a member of the D.C. Bar, a volunteer with Fairfax CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and a proud mother of four children. She resides in Fairfax Station, Virginia with her husband, two daughters, and two sons.
Caroline Pham, Nominee for Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Caroline D. Pham is a recognized leader in financial services compliance and regulatory strategy and policy, focusing on capital markets and emerging issues such as digital innovation. She is a Managing Director at Citi where she has held various senior roles, including as a global head of compliance and deputy head of global regulatory affairs. She is currently head of market structure for strategic initiatives in Citi’s Institutional Clients Group and represents Citi on the Executive Committee of the Chamber of Digital Commerce. Pham has advised on key global issues such as prudential regulation and systemic risk, financial markets including currencies and commodities, fintech and digital assets, and environmental, social and governance (ESG), and has led initiatives for Dodd-Frank Act implementation and other global financial regulatory reform.
Pham’s past experience in private and public sector roles includes serving as Special Counsel and Policy Advisor to former CFTC Commissioner Scott O’Malia. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Law, Economics, and Finance and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Business and Finance Law Program. Pham is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation; member of the Council of the American Bar Association Business Law Section and the Executive Committee of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board; Vice Chair of its Banking Law Committee; and past Co-Chair of the Securities, Capital Markets, and Derivatives Subcommittee. Pham has a B.A. from UCLA and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. She is from California’s Central Valley and lives in New York City with her family.
Edward Gabriel, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
Ambassador Edward Gabriel has an extensive background in international affairs, having convened multilateral policy forums involving national security, trade, and energy issues. He has been involved in matters of Russian nuclear non-proliferation, and he has been active in advising the U.S. government on Middle East policy concerns. In 1997, he became the 16th U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco. Currently, Ambassador Gabriel is the volunteer President and CEO of the American Task Force on Lebanon, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build greater understanding and cultural ties between the United States and Lebanon.
Ambassador Gabriel was founding CEO of one of the largest public affairs companies in Washington D.C., the Madison Public Affairs Group. He was a senior economic analyst with the Department of Energy, and was the founding Executive Director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, an association of American Indian tribes that owned energy resources. He was also Director of the Keystone Policy Center’s Energy Project, which pioneered electricity sector reform. He serves on the boards of the American Schools of Tangier and Marrakech, the Keystone Policy Center, AMIDEAST, and Lebanese American University. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and ACCESS Arab American of the Year, among others, and was recognized by the FBI for his work on bilateral security issues. He is the recipient of Lebanon’s National Order of the Cedar and Morocco’s Order of the Ouissam Alaouite. Ambassador Gabriel holds a B.S. degree in business and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Gannon University. Ambassador Gabriel grew up in Olean, NY, and lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Kathleen Linehan.
Nathalie Rayes, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
Nathalie Rayes is the President and CEO of Latino Victory Project, a national organization dedicated to building Latino political power. Rayes has devoted her career to advancing and empowering the Latino community through advocacy and education. Before joining Latino Victory Project, Rayes was Vice President of Public Affairs for Grupo Salinas in the United States and Executive Director of Fundación Azteca America. Earlier in her career, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, where she created and directed the city’s first-ever Office of Immigrant Affairs and managed the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations, International Trade, and Protocol.
Rayes currently serves on the Board of Directors of Hispanic Federation and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and she is the chair of the Binational Advisory Group for the Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE). She served six years as President Barack Obama’s appointee to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, chairing the Audit Committee. She was named one of the 25 most powerful Latinas in the United States by People en Español Magazine and Top 10 Líderes by Hispanic Executive Magazine in 2021. Rayes was recognized in the Huffington Post “40 Under 40 Latinos in Foreign Policy” in 2015. She is the recipient of UCLA Masters in Public Policy Alumna of the Year 2014 and Santa Monica College Distinguished Alumna Recognition Award for Outstanding Professional and Community Service Achievement of 2013. Rayes has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology cum laude and a Master’s in Public Policy with concentrations in International Relations and Education from UCLA. She is fluent in Spanish and conversational Arabic.
Mary Swig, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace Board of Directors
Mary Green Swig is an internationally-known fashion designer, who for many decades has brought her luxurious silk creations to the United States from East Asia. Her company, Mary Green, has also designed and imported innovative clothing and other interesting products from Asia, Middle East, and Africa. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley. Active in various not-for-profit organizations, she serves on the boards of, among others, the Solar Electric Light Fund, Americans for Cures, as well as the International Advisory Council of the United States Institute of Peace. She also serves on the Women’s Leadership Board of the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She also serves on the Advisory Council of Presidio Graduate School and the Boards of the Shanghai and Haifa Sister City Committees. She is the recipient of the Retinitis Pigmentosa Vision Award Woman of Vision Leadership. She has also received the Leadership Award of the Leading Women’s Entrepreneurs of the World.
Glenda Glover, Appointee for Vice Chair of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover serves as the eighth President of Tennessee State University (TSU) in Nashville, Tennessee, a position she has held since January 2013. Under her leadership as the University’s first female president, TSU has experienced a significant increase in alumni and corporate giving, research funding and academic offerings. The University has also received the Carnegie R2 “high research activity” designation with Dr. Glover at the helm. Dr. Glover’s commitment and advocacy of HBCUs spans nearly four decades, including the work she has done as International President and CEO of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc (AKA). Dr. Glover has engaged in groundbreaking work to elevate the stature of HBCUs with historic fundraising efforts and marketing. Through her work as a college president and as the international president of AKA, she implemented a fundraising campaign to raise $1 million in one day for HBCUs. This massive fundraising effort resulted in the establishment of endowments at each of the 96 four-year HBCUs.
Dr. Glover’s educational development began as a student at Tennessee State University, where she majored in mathematics. After graduating with honors with a Bachelor of Science degree, she pursued the Master of Business Administration from Clark Atlanta University. She then completed her doctorate in business from George Washington University, and later completed her law degree from Georgetown University. She is also a certified public accountant, and is one of only three African-American women to hold the Ph.D-CPA-JD combination in the United States. Her career also includes serving on boards of publicly traded corporations Pinnacle Financial Partners, The Lenox Group, Citigroup-Student Loan Corporation, and First Guaranty Bancshares. Dr. Glover currently serves as a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority.
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