As the Acting Director of the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), Michele Mital leads the FDA's efforts to carry out the mission of CTP—established by enactment of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (the Act)—"to make tobacco-related death and disease part of America's past, not America's future, and, by doing so, ensure a healthier life for every American family."

Ms. Mital has a distinguished career of more than 25 years with the FDA, as well as with the FDA’s original Office of Tobacco Programs in the 1990s. She was named permanent Deputy Director of CTP in 2019, after serving as Acting Deputy Director since 2018. As Deputy Director she was responsible for assuring that CTP accomplished its public health goals set forth in the Act. Prior to that position Michele served as CTP’s Associate Director for Program Coordination, where she provided strategic advice and counsel on programmatic and management matters. 

Michele began her FDA career in 1994 as a policy analyst in the Office of Tobacco Programs, leading a team of analysts responsible for working with state and territorial government officials to enforce FDA’s 1996 tobacco regulation. She subsequently worked for nearly 12 years in the Office of Legislation within the Office of the Commissioner, including as the Senior Advisor and Deputy for more than six years and as the Acting Associate Commissioner for Legislation in 2012-2013. In these roles, she provided strategic guidance on pending legislation, legislative needs, and oversight activities to FDA Commissioners and agency leadership, helping advance key agency legislative priorities across the broad range of the FDA’s responsibilities and authorities.

Following enactment of the Act in 2009, Ms. Mital returned to tobacco regulation and played an instrumental role in helping establish CTP and in implementing the new law.

Ms. Mital is a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park.