Ariel P. Eckblad's term ended on December 9, 2022.
Ariel P. Eckblad is a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). Ariel leads the Bureau’s efforts to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflict and instability in Africa and Asia. She also oversees the Bureau’s office of program design, monitoring, and evaluation.
Ariel was most recently Chief-of-Staff in the Office of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and had been the National Security Legislative Counsel in the former Senate office of Vice President Kamala Harris. Outside of government, Ariel was the visiting Mullen Seminar of Law professor at Georgetown University. She has taught negotiation and dispute resolution at the American University Washington College of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Harvard Law School.
Ariel holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law, and Masters of Science degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of London in diplomacy and international relations, respectively. She has been both a Marshall Scholar in the United Kingdom and a Fulbright Scholar in India, and was the valedictorian of her class at Spelman College.