Asif Chaudhry has been the U.S. ambassador to Moldova, a small country in southeast Europe sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, since July 11, 2008. Moldova, which declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, has seen a succession of career diplomats serve at the U.S. embassy in the capital city of Chişinău.

 

Chaudhry was born and raised in a farming family in the small village of Nindowal, in the Punjab province of Pakistan. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science at the University of Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan, his master’s degree in economics at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and his PhD in Agricultural Economics at Washington State University in 1988. After a short stint as an assistant professor of economics at Montana State University, Chaudhry joined the U.S. Foreign Service.

 

A career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, Chaudhry began his career with several postings drawing on his educational background as an agricultural economist, serving as Agriculture Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, from 1992 to 1995, and as Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia, from 1996 to 1999. From 1999 to 2002, he was Assistant to the General Sales Manager (GSM) of the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service, where he served as the GSM’s principal advisor on Department of Agriculture Commodity Assistance programs for the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. He served as Minister Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, from 2002 to 2006. Returning stateside, Chaudhry served as Deputy Administrator of the Office of Global Analysis at the Foreign Agricultural Service in Washington, DC, from 2006 to 2008. His posting to Moldova was his first assignment not directly related to agriculture.

 

Chaudhry’s language skills include Russian, Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, and Polish. He and his wife, Charla Chaudhry, have two sons and a daughter.

- Matt Bewig

 

Asif Chaudhry appointed US envoy to Moldova (Muslim Observer)