Tara Oakman

Tara Oakman, interim managing director, Program, at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where she works to transform health and healthcare systems so that they meet the goals and needs of the people they serve.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 2013, Tara served as director of the Quality Team in the Exchange Policy and Operations Group at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In this role, she oversaw implementation of the sections of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that set the quality-related requirements for the new Health Insurance Marketplaces and participating issuers. She also helped to write some of the first market reform regulations under the ACA. Earlier, she was an international health officer with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Global Health Affairs implementing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. She also served as a program analyst in the HHS Budget Office with responsibility for evaluating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget.

Tara received a BA in political science from Brown University, a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in healthcare policy from Harvard University. She has written and lectured on the uninsured, Medicare, health care reform, and a host of other issues.

Tara lives in Princeton, N.J., with her husband and children.