A career diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East, Michael H. Corbin was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on May 5, 2011, and confirmed by the Senate on June 30. He was sworn in on July 25.

 

Corbin was born in New York City. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College, he served from 1982 to 1984 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania, where he worked as an agricultural extension officer and served as a trainer for new Peace Corps volunteers. 

 

He joined the State Department in 1985, and his first assignment took him to the U.S. embassy in Tunisia.

 

In 1987, he shifted to the embassy in Kuwait. 

 

Corbin then served in the State Department in Washington, DC, as a staff assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and in the office of United Nations Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

 

From 1994 to 1997, he served at the embassy in Cairo, Egypt, as the political-military affairs officer.

 

Corbin was the director of the Counter-Narcotics Section at the U.S. embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, from 1997 to 2001.

 

He returned to Washington in 2001, becoming deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs.

 

Two years later Corbin served as the minister counselor for economic and political affairs at the embassy in Cairo, until June 2006.

 

He was chargé d’affaires in Damascus, Syria from 2006 to 2008. According to a cable released by WikiLeaks, in 2007, Corbin urged the administration of George W. Bush to impose sanctions on Ali Mamluk, the chief of intelligence for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. His advice was ignored. Action against Mamluk wasn’t taken until April 2011, after Syrian security forces killed dozens of protestors in Deraa.

 

Corbin’s next assignment was as minister-counselor for political-military affairs at Embassy Baghdad, Iraq (September 2008 to July 2009), followed by a posting as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, a position he held until his appointment as ambassador to the UAE.

 

He speaks French, Spanish and Arabic. When not performing his diplomatic duties, Corbin is an enthusiastic cyclist. 

 

Corbin and his wife, Mary Ellen Hickey, have two children, a son and a daughter. Hickey is also a member of the Foreign Service, recently serving as managing director of the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Official Biography (United States Embassy, United Arab Emirates)

Confirmation Hearing Statement to Senate Foreign Relations Committee (pdf)