Kelly Keiderling has represented the United States as a Foreign Service Officer since 1988. Her current assignment is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). ECA manages exchange programs to further U.S. foreign policies, including the promotion of mutual understanding between the United States and the nations of the world.
Prior to her current State Department assignment, she was Deputy Chief of Mission and intermittently Charge d’Affaires in Caracas, Venezuela. Previously, she served overseas as Deputy Chief of Mission in Chisinau, Moldova; Public Affairs Officer in Cuba, Botswana and Kyrgyzstan; and in other diplomatic assignments at U.S. embassies in the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, and Zambia. Her assignments in Washington include Senior Panama Desk Officer, Public Diplomacy Desk Officer for the Caribbean, acting Deputy Director for Central American Affairs, Strategic Language Issues Coordinator in the Bureau of Human Resources, and Chief of Staff in the Iraq Office.
Ms. Keiderling received a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the National War College in Washington, D.C. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, and some Italian and Romanian. She was raised in Latin America and Portugal in a Foreign Service family. She is married to a U.S. Foreign Service Officer and has two children.
