Barks-Ruggles
Erica
Ambassador Erica Barks Ruggles served for over 32 years in senior leadership and diplomatic positions. She led the successful U.S. effort to rejoin UNESCO, setting up the U.S. Mission and re-established U.S. leadership in the UN’s lead institution on AI and emerging technology ethics, education standards, and cultural preservation especially in conflict areas. Prior to that Ambassador Barks Ruggles was the Senior Representative and Head of Delegation to four major International Telecommunication Union conferences in 2022, culminating in the election of the first female Secretary General in the organization’s 157-year history.
For the first year of the Biden-Harris Administration, Ambassador Barks Ruggles served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs (IO), overseeing all U.S. policies and relationships with the United Nations. Ambassador Barks Ruggles has been a Senior Diplomatic Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and was the Acting Chancellor of the College of International Strategic Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University in 2018-2020.
From January 2015- March 2018, she served as the Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Rwanda. She previously was the U.S. Consul General in Cape Town, South Africa. From January 2009-July 2011, Ambassador Barks Ruggles served as the Deputy to the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, serving on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council. From 2004-2008 she was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor overseeing international human rights, and democracy programming in the Middle East and South and Central Asia.
Earlier in her career, Ambassador Barks Ruggles served for three years as a Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, where she led the successful effort to pass the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. She has also been posted to France, India and Norway and served on the staffs of three Secretaries of State. She was a Visiting Fellow at The Brookings Institution and an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is fluent in French and Norwegian and has rudimentary knowledge of Spanish.
Ambassador Barks Ruggles is now the Magro Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in International Affairs at Dartmouth College.
