Charles N. W. Keckler is a graduate of Harvard College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received his A.B. in Anthropology, magna cum laude. He went on to receive his M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, where he was a Regents Fellow and an affiliate of the Evolution and Human Behavior Program. Following a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship at the University of New Mexico, he returned to the University of Michigan, from which he received his J.D., magna cum laude, in 1999, having been elected to the Order of the Coif and Editorial Board of the Michigan Law Review. After his clerkship at United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, he entered private practice as a litigator in Chicago.
He has served, during two presidential administrations, in several senior appointed positions in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including Deputy Assistant Secretary, Associate Deputy Secretary, Senior Advisor to the Secretary, and Acting Deputy Secretary, and from 2017-2020, led the Department’s award-winning transformation initiative, ReImagineHHS. Between his periods at HHS, he was twice nominated by President Obama and twice confirmed by the Senate as a minority party member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation. His academic experience has included teaching courses in various disciplines at Harvard, the University of Michigan, the University of New Mexico, Northwestern, The Pennsylvania State University, Washington & Lee, and George Mason University.