Carrie D. Wolinetz, Ph.D.

Health Bioscience Innovations Practice

Carrie D. Wolinetz, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized science and health policy expert and former senior government official who brings decades of experience to serve and advise the clients of Lewis-Burke. As a leader inside and outside government, Carrie has successfully led efforts to increase funding for biomedical research, prepare the country for potential future pandemics, promote the bioeconomy, increase health and gender equity, and expand access to the products of federally funded research. In her role as Principal and Chair of the firm’s Health and Bioscience Innovation Policy Practice Group, Carrie leverages deep knowledge and a wide-ranging network to develop strategies for the research and healthcare communities towards effective solutions in areas of health policy, health systems and response, the bioscience ecosystem of the future, and efforts to accelerate biomedical innovation.

Throughout her career, Carrie has employed big picture vision to create blueprints for achievement of advocacy and policy goals, across the legislative and executive branches of government, ranging from coalition building to communication and lobbying campaigns to report and recommendations development. She uses her extensive experience working with Congress, the interagency, regulatory agencies, and across the breadth of the biomedical and health stakeholder communities to create achievable short and long-term objectives and ambitious goals in service to the research and healthcare community. As a prominent leader in biomedical and health policy, Carrie is a sought out and trusted expert across public and private sectors for seeing and creating new opportunities or defining critical issues and assets for the life science innovation ecosystem.

Issue Experience: Basic and clinical research (National Institutes of Health, ARPA-H, HHS, VA, USDA); biomedical research policy (human participant protections, data sharing, rigor and reproducibility); bioeconomy and biomanufacturing; biosafety, biosecurity and research security; emerging biotechnologies; medical research regulation (FDA, CMS, CDC, USDA); appropriations; healthcare policy; telemedicine; graduate education; international science policy; diversity, equity, and inclusion policy.

Additional Experience: Prior to joining Lewis-Burke, Carrie spent nearly a decade in public service, leading the inaugural Health and Life Sciences division in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, heading the Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as NIH’s Associate Director for Science Policy, and serving as Chief of Staff to NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins. She has decades working with and advocating for the university and scientific communities, covering biomedical and agricultural policy issues for the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), as well as serving as President of United for Medical Research. Carrie is a trained scientist, with degrees in Animal Science and a research focus in reproductive physiology and has spent her career leveraging her scientific experience to inform science and health policy issues.

Vital Statistics: Carrie has slowly been making her way south, from growing up in Syracuse, New York where she began her professional career as a zookeeper to her beloved undergrad alma mater, Cornell University (where she met her husband), followed by her doctoral degree at The Pennsylvania State University, before settling in long-term in DC. She loves nothing more than to travel all over the world with her husband and two sons, hiking with her dogs, cooking for family and friends, or curling up on the porch with a good book. For the future, Carrie and her family dream of retiring to their midlife crisis spontaneous purchase, a dog-friendly B&B in coastal Delaware, which is where they can often be found on the weekends.