BIOGRAPHY
Vicki Huddleston
Charge d'Affaires, Ethiopia
Term of Appointment:
03/24/2006 to
10/15/2006
Vicki Huddleston is a former career member of the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister. She served as U.S. Ambassador to Mali and to Madagascar, as well as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1997-1999).
In Mali, Ambassador Huddleston was instrumental in reinforcing security and stability throughout the Pan-Sahelian region. While Deputy Assistant Secretary she formulated policies that contributed to the peace settlement in Sierra Leone. Her commitment to the environment resulted in the establishment of new protected areas in Madagascar.
As chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba, she devised and implemented an outreach program aimed at empowering the Cuban people and broadening peaceful internal political discourse through the distribution of thousands of books and radios. While Deputy Chief of Mission in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she acted as operational liaison for the 1994 deployment of U.S. and Multinational Forces.
In the spring of 2005, she was a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. A former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on the staff of Senator Jeff Bingaman, Ambassador Huddleston began her life overseas as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru and later worked for the American Institute for Free Labor Development in both Peru and Brazil.
Ambassador Huddleston holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; she received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado where she recently gave the first Distinguished Alumni plenary speech during the University’s annual World Affairs Week. She is the recipient of Department of State awards including a Distinguished Honor Award, two Presidential Meritorious Service Awards, and a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Released on March 24, 2006
| 
