Phillip-Browne is now aligned with the ruling Team Unity Party and took criticism from the opposition Labour Party for being appointed as ambassador with no experience in foreign service. “I suspect when the Labour government got in, people got rewards,” Phillip-Browne said in response. “. . . Everywhere that happens, and that’s why you find quite often, people in senior positions...they usually change when the government changes.”   read more

Beginning in 1996, he was the diplomatic advisor to the governor of Macau, General Vasco Rocha Vieira. In that post he coordinated border issues with China as Portugal prepared to hand over the colony in 1999. He later served as consul general in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2002 was named deputy permanent representative to the European Union (EU) in Brussels, where he represented Portugal in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations.   read more

President George W. Bush nominated Petersen to a spot on the FEC in June 2008. His nomination was confirmed by his former employers on the Rules Committee. He served a term as FEC chairman beginning in 2010. As one of the three Republican appointees on the FEC, Petersen has been a reliable vote against attempts to reform elections. In 2013, for instance, he voted to make it more difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute campaign finance violations.   read more

Fanning was deputy director of the Committee on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. The group was an outgrowth of the 9/11 Commission and assessed activities aimed at preventing WMD proliferation. In 2009, Fanning was named deputy under secretary of the Navy, where he worked to bring efficiencies to the service’s processes. If he’s confirmed by the Senate, Fanning will be the first openly gay civilian head of an armed forces branch.   read more

Cabañas is Cuba’s first ambassador to the United States in more than 50 years. His appointment to the post came two months after a restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which had ended during Cold War hostilities in 1961. Cabañas maintained a somewhat higher profile than his predecessors, traveling around the United States speaking to various organizations. He was the first head of Cuba’s Interests Section to allow himself to be filmed at such events.   read more

In 2012, Malac was given her first ambassadorial post, in Liberia. Her tenure there was fairly routine until the summer of 2014, when the Ebola outbreak began in that country. She helped coordinate the U.S. response to the disease, even to the point of reassuring Liberians that American troops sent to help with logistics and other issues relating to the outbreak were not in the country to stage a coup against President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.   read more

He got a taste of Washington life when he interned for Sen. Ted Kennedy. He later worked for Rep. Wayne Dowdy, a fellow Millsaps graduate. In 1988, Dowdy tried to make the jump to the Senate with Pittman running his campaign, but they lost to Republican Trent Lott. Pittman did a tour in Iraq, serving as deputy director in the Governance Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority for an eight-month period. He came home in 2007 for what turned out to be a long stay in Washington.   read more

In 2007 Peterson served as cultural officer in Abuja, Nigeria. In 2009,she was made deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon, serving at times as chargé d’affaires. She was brought home in 2012 to serve as director of the Office of Multilateral and Global Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Much of her work there focused on the treatment of LGBT people in other countries. She held that post until her nomination as ambassador.   read more

Murray had thought of studying art, but a little sibling rivalry changed that. Her brother John, a physics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Cherry that she wouldn’t be able to handle the physics curriculum at MIT. She decided to prove him wrong. She earned her bachelor’s degree there in 1973 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in physics, also at MIT, in 1978.   read more

In 2005, Darling went to work for the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, initially as an environmental and land-use counsel, as well as its privacy administrator. He was promoted in 2009 to be deputy chief of staff and assistant general counsel for the authority. Darling went to Washington in 2012 as chief counsel for the FMCSA. He was made acting administrator two years later upon the departure of Administrator Anne Farro.   read more

From 2003 to 2004 he served as the elected Chairman of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force against drug trafficking and money laundering.   read more

Darius-Clarke is from Castries, Saint Lucia’s capital. She was educated at St. Joseph’s Convent and later earned a B.A. at the University of the West Indies, an M.A. at the University of Manchester and another M.A. at Durham University. Darius-Clarke is a management consultant and for more than 20 years has been an educator, most recently on the faculty of Monroe College’s Saint Lucia campus. Darius-Clarke’s husband, Leo Clarke, is general secretary of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP).   read more

One cause Jackson took up was a fight against cholera. He coordinated the installation of 100 latrines in Cameroon to provide decent sanitation. He also worked to promote trade between that country and the U.S. Jackson testified to Congress on multiple occasions about the Boko Haram kidnapping of girls in Nigeria. He said in an interview that he’d wanted to join the Foreign Service since he read “The Ugly American” as an eighth-grader.   read more

Lettre got a job as a staff member for the House Select Intelligence Committee in 2002. He stayed there until 2005, when he joined the staff of Sen. Harry Reid as senior defense and intelligence adviser, remaining there as Reid took over as Senate Majority Leader. There he worked on intelligence and defense appropriation legislation and confirmation of defense officials. He went on to be special assistant to secretaries of defense Bob Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel.   read more

Feeley returned to Mexico City in 2009 as the deputy chief of mission. Beginning in 2011, he served as chargé d’affaires upon the departure of Ambassador Carlos Pascual after some embarrassing cables were released as part of Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning’s WikiLeaks dump. Feeley later testified in secret at Manning’s trial concerning the release’s impact on relations with Mexico and Ecuador. Feeley also oversaw preparation for Secretary of State Clinton’s work at the Cartagena Summit.   read more

His first Washington assignment came in 1998, when he was stationed at his country’s embassy as a first secretary. Kriščiūnas returned to Lithuania in 2001, but this time to the Finance Ministry, where he was the director of the European Union Program Management Department. In 2004, he was named an undersecretary of finance. In 2008, he completed a management studies program at The Swedish Institute in Stockholm. The following year he was named vice minister at the Finance Ministry.   read more