Heide B. Fulton
Ambassador
Heide B. Fulton was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Ambassador to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay on December 13, 2022.
A career member of the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Programs in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement from August 2020 to December 2022, and prior to that, as Director of the Office of Mexican Affairs. A public diplomacy-coned officer, Ambassador Fulton led the U.S. Embassy in Honduras as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d’Affaires from 2016-19. Since joining the U.S. Information Agency in 1998, Ambassador Fulton has served overseas as Director of Counternarcotics in the Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan; Counselor for Public Affairs in Quito; Public Affairs Officer in Phnom Penh; and Vice Consul and Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Manila. Her Washington assignments include Director of the Main Press Office, Pearson Fellow in the Office of Senator Robert Menendez, Press Advisor for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Special Assistant to Under Secretary for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns.
Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador Fulton served on active duty as a Quartermaster Officer with the U.S. Army, with assignments in Virginia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Italy. From 2005-06, she returned to active duty as a Civil Affairs Officer to deploy to Iraq, where she served as the Senior Multi-National Force – Iraq Liaison Officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq in Baghdad. She retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in June 2020 after 28 years of service.
Ambassador Fulton is a native of Buffalo, New York. She graduated from Boston College in 1992 and earned her master’s degree in International Relations from Troy State University in 1996 while posted to Germany with the U.S. Army. She speaks Spanish and has a knocking association with Khmer, Ukrainian, and French. She enjoys traveling, skiing, scuba diving, and is a certified personal trainer. She is married to a fellow Foreign Service Officer, and they have two children.
