Diplomat in Residence – Allegheny
(OH, PA, WV)
Tours:Lagos, Nigeria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Durban, South Africa; Bureau of Oceans, and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs; Maputo, Mozambique; Una Chapman Cox Sabbatical Fellow based at Yale University; OES Office of Conservation and Water; Office of Global Talent Management; Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate; OES Office of Environmental Quality
Career Track: Management
Years of Service: 24+
Prior Experience: USAID Tanzania; Executive Director of a Community Development Corporation in Northern California; Director of STEM Education programs in Northern California; Director of municipal housing programs and active in local and regional leadership and civic development initiative.
Languages: Kiswahili and Portuguese
Education: MPA from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; Bachelor’s degrees in African and Afro-American Studies and International Relations from Stanford University.
Interesting Experience: My most intense and exciting experience happened in 2010 when I led the USG’s international campaign to respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The spill occurred only in US waters, and while our domestic response was massive, it was insufficient to the task. We needed international support to cap the well and to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil. Human expertise as well as supplies and equipment such as skimmer ships, boom of various types and dispersant needed to be located and facilitated to the area of operation. I served as the Department of State representative on the National Response Team – the USG-wide body hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency charged with managing all man-made disasters. It was my role to elicit and coordinate the needed international resources to address the spill and keep the White House, the Coast Guard-led Task Force and senior Department Officials and spokesperson fully briefed so that they could in turn keep the American people informed. The Department did not yet recognize this domestic disaster as an international affairs matter, so did not stand up a normal Operations Center Task Force. Instead, I had to assemble an ad hoc team to work nearly around the clock for 87 days to find solutions to urgent and unprecedented problems occurring at the bottom of the sea, on its surface, and as each day progressed, increasingly on shore. The international spill response community was challenged by this tragic event which sparked action to improve policy and science to help the global community prepare for future oil spills. As a result, in the immediate aftermath we focused on developing needed policies such as a policy for arctic oil spill cooperation, a policy for the Department’s response to domestic disasters, and undertaking an oil spill exercise in the Puget Sound with our Canadian counterparts and numerous international observers to engage with the lessons America learned from Deepwater Horizon.
Last Post: OES – Director of the Office of Environmental Quality
Why I Chose a Foreign Service Career: I decided to join the Foreign Service because I wanted to give myself and my family the opportunity to work and live overseas within an organization where I could build a career and my family would be provided with good housing and educational opportunities. I had worked overseas as an independent contractor and loved the work, but I did not enjoy the difficulties of setting up house and home including locating (and paying for) the right schools for my children. (I had three ages 5, 11 and 13 when I first moved overseas.) I immediately found the opportunities afforded by working with the Department of State to be exactly what I wanted: intellectual stimulation; the chance to develop and contribute to goals I wanted to achieve; and good living and educational conditions for my family.