Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 14 years old. He became a naturalized citizen at age 21.
Cuéllar is the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, he was the first Mexican immigrant to hold that position. During his nearly seven years on the bench, Cuéllar led the court system’s operations to better meet the needs of limited English speakers.
Cuéllar has served three U.S. presidential administrations at the White House and in federal agencies. He was the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford University, where he held appointments in law, political science, and international affairs. He also led the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Cuéllar graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School and received a PhD in political science from Stanford University. He has spoken about how he overcame issues as someone from a working-class Mexican American background at private universities that were filled with privileged students. “I felt like there was some conquering of fear,” Cuéllar told a gathering of students at California State University, Northridge, in 2017. “Somewhere along the line there was a crucial turning point, maybe about a year into [college]. It kind of flipped and I thought, ‘it’s true that I’m not coming into it with some of what they have, but they’re not coming into this with some of what I have.’”
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and winner of the Warren M. Christopher Award, Cuéllar serves on the boards of Inflection AI and Harvard University.
