Office of Global Policy and Strategy Leadership
Associate Commissioner for Global Policy and Strategy
Mark Abdoo is the Associate Commissioner for Global Policy and Strategy, providing executive oversight, strategic leadership and policy direction to FDA’s global policy, operations, trade, and diplomacy activities.
Mr. Abdoo joined the FDA in 2013 as the inaugural director of the Office of Public Health and Trade. In 2015, he took up the role of Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Policy, and in 2017 became Deputy Commissioner for Global Regulatory Operations and Policy (acting).
Prior to his tenure at the FDA, Mr. Abdoo served in other senior positions in the Federal government including Senior Advisor in the Bureau for Food Security at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Director for Global Health and Food Security at the National Security Council, and in various senior positions in what was then the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Abdoo received a Bachelor of Arts degree from College of the Holy Cross and conducted graduate studies at Brown University. Before entering joining Federal service, he lived in East Asia for nine years, where he owned two consulting companies. He is fluent in Mandarin.
Deputy Director, Office of Global Policy and Strategy
Ravi Bharwani, principal advisor for global policy in the Office of Global Policy and Strategy (OGPS), has been promoted to OGPS Deputy Director. As principal policy advisor in the OGPS immediate office (IO) since 2021, Bharwani led stakeholder or counterpart engagements and coordination, advised the associate commissioner on complex issues, and managed IO functions – including budget formulation and oversight, the OGPS ORISE program, and cross-cutting policy initiatives.
Bharwani started his FDA career as a student intern in 2007 with the Office of Resource Management, part of what was then the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA). Upon graduating from American University with a degree in public policy, he was selected as the first employee to join the new ORA Quality Management Staff. In this position, he performed quantitative and qualitative analysis and helped establish the new program while working toward graduate degrees in business administration and finance from the University of Maryland, College Park.
In 2013, Bharwani joined the newly formed Office of Public Health and Trade in what was then the Office of International Programs (OIP) as an international trade policy analyst. His work focused on OIP’s World Trade Organization (WTO) portfolio and policy positions with the Technical Barriers to Trade and Good Regulatory Practices interagency groups within the WTO.
He joined the Global Regulatory Operations and Policy Directorate (GO) in 2017 as a policy advisor where he negotiated FDA equities in the United States-Mexico Canada Agreement, managed the GO/IO budget, and coordinated policy issues with HHS and trade-promoting agencies. Since OGPS’s inception, he has worked on managing the office’s budget, preparing positions for Congressional and HHS stakeholders, and advancing policy coherence across OGPS.
Director, Office of Communications, Evaluation, and Logistics
Michael Oehlsen, Ph.D., is the Director of the Office of Communications, Evaluation, and Logistics (OCEL), which is comprised of three distinct functional teams: Communications, Planning and Evaluation, and Logistical Operations. These teams are responsible for providing the Office of Global Policy and Strategy (OGPS) with overall program and logistical support, strategic plan development and performance measurement, and office, agency, and international communications regarding OGPS achievements and global public health interests.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Oehlsen began his FDA career in 2003 as a regulatory review chemist in the Division of Manufacturing Technologies (DMT) at the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM). During his time in the DMT, he reviewed animal drug applications and was an instructor for the FDA’s pharmaceutical inspectorate Level III drug certification program.
In 2010, Oehlsen transitioned to the CVM’s Office of the Director as Director of International Policy and Logistics, where he oversaw the FDA’s Veterinary Mutual Recognition Agreement work with European Union member states and, later, with the United Kingdom following Brexit. He also led several key bilateral and multilateral international working groups to further harmonize global regulatory policies. While at the CVM, Oehlsen also established the center’s inaugural strategic plan for international programs and was responsible for creating and implementing the CVM’s international tracking system for monitoring, tracking, and evaluating all international activities — a system that was later adopted FDA-wide.
Oehlsen received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in metallo-inorganic medicinal chemistry with a concentration in oncological platinum complexes, both from Virginia Commonwealth University. It was during his Ph.D. program — while working on a cancer drug that had entered into clinical trials — that Oehlsen was first introduced to federal and international drug policy.
Director, Office of Global Operations
(vacant)
Director, Office of Trade and Global Partnerships
Joseph Rieras, J.D., is the Director of the Office of Trade and Global Partnerships (OTGP). He oversees and leads a broad range of significant, wide-ranging, and complex activities related to the FDA’s trade environment, spearheads FDA’s negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of mutual recognition agreements, and supervises the FDA’s efforts to establish international arrangements, including confidentiality commitments.
Rieras earned his law degree from the Howard University School of Law. He started his career in the private sector as an attorney in the international trade group of a major D.C.-based law firm. He began his public service when he joined the Office of the General Counsel of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), within the Executive Office of the President. As an Associate General Counsel, Rieras represented the United States in litigation at the World Trade Organization, handled trade-related regulatory policy and legal matters, and was the lead counsel for trade agreement negotiations. He also served as a USTR Legal Advisor in Geneva, Switzerland.