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A member of the Senior Foreign Service, McMullen has served overseas as deputy principal officer in Cape Town, South Africa; economic officer in Libreville, Gabon; political officer in Colombo, Sri Lanka; and vice consul in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Name: McMullen, Ronald
Current Position: Ambassador
A native of Iowa, Ronald K. McMullen was sworn in as the US ambassador to Eritrea on November 8, 2007.
McMullen received his bachelor’s degree from Drake University, his master’s degree from the University of Minnesota and his doctorate from the University of Iowa, where he wrote his dissertation on economic consequences of African coups d’etat. His languages include Spanish, French, and Afrikaans.
Before joining the Foreign Service in 1982, McMullen served as a State Department intern in Khartoum, Sudan. From 1990 until 1993, McMullen served as visiting professor at the US Military Academy at West Point where he taught six different courses in International Relations and Comparative Politics.
A member of the Senior Foreign Service, McMullen has served overseas as deputy principal officer in Cape Town, South Africa; economic officer in Libreville, Gabon; political officer in Colombo, Sri Lanka; and vice consul in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
From 1999 to 2002, he served as deputy chief of mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the Fiji Islands at a time when the country was the brink of civil conflict after an armed takeover of parliament and subsequent coup d’etat.
McMullen was deputy chief of mission in Rangoon, Burma from 2002 until 2005. In Burma he worked closely with Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and pro-democracy and ethnic minority groups.
He then served as associate dean of the Foreign Service Institute’s School of Leadership and Management and directed the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Bureau of International Narcotic and Law Enforcement Affairs.
