Hayden became one of the most vocal critics of the Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which included language allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to library records and forbade library personnel from disclosing to patrons that they were targets of investigators. She continued to fight the law when in 2003 she was elected to a one-year term as the President of the American Library Association.   read more

From 2000 to 2004, Silliman held the post of political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, then returned to Washington as director of the State Dept’s Office of Southern European Affairs. Starting in July 2008, he served as deputy chief of mission in Ankara, Turkey, and in 2010 he became charge d’affaires for the embassy there. During his time in Turkey, Silliman and his wife Catherine appeared on Turkish television, showing viewers what went into an American Thanksgiving dinner.   read more

Kim’s father, Kim Ki-wan was a member of the Korean CIA and was posted as a diplomat to Japan. He was implicated in the 1973 kidnapping of dissident (and future president) Kim Dae-jung. Kim himself had been kidnapped, by North Korea, and held for 20 days in 1958. Born in 1960, Kim was 13 years old when his father, following the kidnapping, moved his family to Los Angeles. In 2011, Kim became the first American of Korean descent to serve as ambassador to South Korea. He served there until 2014.   read more

Casper moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2012 as the consul general there. She returned to Washington in 2014 as the deputy assistant secretary for international media and the following year was named senior adviser in the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. In 2016, she was named acting director of partnerships in the Global Engagement Center. Casper is known in the State Dept for intensely studying the language and customs of every country in which she serves.   read more

When WikiLeaks published State Dept cables, Pyatt became embroiled in controversy because of a 2007 cable he sent recommending that a secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs visit Washington D.C. in order to help “feed” U.S. government views on Iran into the Indian system. Pyatt became U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in July, 2013. In March, 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Since then Pyatt has helped coordinate the U.S. response to the action.   read more

In 2001 Bitter was made a special assistant in the office of Secretary of State Colin Powell. She was appointed in 2009 as Deputy Director of the U.S. State Dept Operations Center and became Director the following year. That put her in charge as the WikiLeaks papers were being released, and Bitter was one of the officials charged with trying to mitigate the damage caused by them. She was named Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2013.   read more

Yovanovitch was named an ambassador for the first time when she took over the U.S. embassy in Kyrgyzstan, which served as a vital base in the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In 2008, Yovanovitch was nominated to be ambassador to Armenia. She was confirmed by the Senate, but not before going through hard questioning on why she wouldn’t use the term “genocide” to refer to the killing by Turkey of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1917. By 2011, she was back in Washington.   read more

Part of her duties were organizing and staffing trips made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Perez returned to Washington in 2011 as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The following year, she had to defend the department after auditors found the United States wasted $200 million on a training program for Iraqi police.   read more

She began work at the Afghanistan desk on July 30, 2001, while the Taliban were still in power. Less than two and a half months later, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Beginning in 2003, Pasi served as deputy principal officer and acting consul general at the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. From 2006 to 2009, she was the deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.   read more

In 2011, he was made special assistant for Europe and Russia to Vice President Joe Biden. He later became a point man for the State Department in relations with those countries and helped coordinate aid for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Silverman turned down a chance to become Ambassador to Lebanon in 2015 because of health reasons, and remained a Deputy Assistant Secretary until accepting the Kuwait post.   read more

Hall was sent to Shanghai in 1997 as consular section chief. She returned to Washington in 2000 as a special assistant in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. The next year she became desk officer in the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs. She had a stint in 2003 as the consul general in Edinburgh, Scotland, before being named senior Cyprus officer in the Office of the Special Cyprus Coordinator, where she participated in negotiations leading to the U.N. settlement of the Cyprus problem in 2004.   read more

Holzhall Richard was sent to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2006 as director of counter-narcotics, law enforcement and rule of law programs there. After that assignment, she took time to earn an M.S. at the National War College in 2008. She began her ambassadorial career in a bit of limbo. Lebanon had no president when she began her tenure and as such could officially be only chargé d’affaires until she could present her credentials to the head of state.   read more

She joined the State Department in 1992 after serving as a trade policy assistant in the International Trade Administration in the Department of Commerce. Early assignments included postings in Bonn and Berlin, Germany. From 2002 to 2004, Elder was cultural affairs officer in the embassy in Budapest, Hungary. She began a stint in Washington in 2005 as senior watch officer in the State Department operations center.   read more

She served as Deputy Chief of Mission and charge d’affaires in Caracas, Venezuela, beginning in 2011. Her tenure ended in 2013, when she and two other diplomats were kicked out of the country by President Maduro, who accused the three of attempting sabotage. “Yankee go home. Enough abuses already,” Maduro said. Keiderling was later accused by Cuban Raul Capote and by the official Cuban press of being an agent of the CIA. Capote claimed that Keiderling was one of his handlers in Havana.   read more

Serbini joined Brunei’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 and his first overseas posting came two years later, when he was named second secretary in the High Commission in Singapore. He moved to the Bangkok embassy in 1984 as first secretary and returned to Brunei the following year as assistant director in the Protocol and Consular Affairs Department. He was promoted to deputy director the following year. In 1989, Serbini was made first secretary in Tokyo.   read more

It was at Williamsville High where he took a class in Afro-Asian cultures that he later credited as spurring an interest in that part of the world. Schwartz quickly got a look at Africa after college, joining the Peace Corps in 1981 as a volunteer in Cameroon. In 1985 he returned to the Peace Corps, this time as a staffer.He also helped establish the Peace Corps’ program in Chad in 1987. Schwartz joined the U.S. State Dept in 1992. His first posting was as a consular officer in Ethiopia.   read more