Linda Mullen

Linda Mullen serves as a Contract Specialist within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), where she plays a pivotal role in executing procurements that support the agency’s mission to strengthen federal nutrition assistance programs such as SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch Program. She manages the full lifecycle of acquisitions for research, evaluation, and policy analysis services, ensuring compliance with federal contracting regulations and alignment with FNS’s data-driven, evidence-based priorities. Her work directly enables program integrity, operational modernization, and performance measurement through strategically awarded contracts. Linda collaborates with a diverse array of contractors specializing in social science research, program evaluation, and policy analysis, including academic institutions, nonprofit research organizations, and small business consultants. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages vendors with demonstrated expertise in designing and implementing rigorous impact assessments, survey methodologies, and behavioral economics analyses. Her contracting approach emphasizes transparency, competitive bidding, and long-term vendor collaboration to ensure high-quality deliverables that inform federal nutrition policy. A steadfast advocate for small business participation, Linda applies a 100% small business set-aside preference across all her procurements in accordance with FAR 19.5, prioritizing contracts awarded to small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, and HUBZone-certified firms. Her contracting patterns reflect a deliberate commitment to expanding economic opportunity and fostering equitable access to federal contracts for underrepresented entrepreneurs in the research and policy sectors. Her primary procurement focus is on NAICS 541720—Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities—where she acquires services related to program evaluation, longitudinal data analysis, behavioral research, and policy impact modeling. She specializes in contracting for mixed-methods studies, stakeholder engagement frameworks, and technology-enabled data collection systems that support FNS’s mission to improve nutrition outcomes through rigorous, actionable research.