Responsible for The Rockefeller Foundation's regional programs and key Foundation-wide administrative offices, specifically information technology, fellowships and special projects, library services, office services and program administration. Dr. Mbacké, a population scientist by training, began his career with the Foundation as a senior scientist for its Population Sciences division in 1992. He became the Foundation's representative for Africa in 1999 and director of Africa Programs and representative for eastern and southern Africa in 2000. In this position, he was responsible for developing and implementing the Foundation's new strategy for improving the lives and livelihoods of the poor and excluded people in Africa. In 2003 Dr. Mbacké was the recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation's Outstanding Achievement Award for his excellent leadership and management of the Nairobi Office.

Dr. Mbacké joined the Foundation after spending six years as a researcher and head of the training division of the Center for Applied Studies and Research on Population and Development at the Sahel Institute in Bamako, Mali. Prior to that, he was both researcher and statistician, working on projects such as the first Senegalese census and on a pilot survey in a nomadic area in Mauritania in preparation for the first Mauritanian census. Dr. Mbacké has a bachelor's degree in statistics from the Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques in Paris, France, a master's degree in demography from the Institut de Formation et de Recherche Démographique in Yaoundé, Cameroon, West Africa, and a doctoral degree in demography from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He has several publications and is a member of several professional associations. Dr. Mbacké was raised in Nioro, a town in Senegal, West Africa, about 25 kilometers north of the Gambian border. He grew up learning English, French and his native tongue, Wolof.