Ambassador (retired) Deborah Malac is a career Foreign Service Officer who served 39 years with the U.S. Department of State. She served as the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda (2016-2020) and the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia (2012-2015). Ambassador Malac also served overseas in Ethiopia, Senegal, Thailand, South Africa, and Cameroon, as well as multiple assignments in the Department of State in Washington, DC, including assignments in the Bureau of African Affairs, the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. The primary focus of her work was advancing democracy, ensuring peace and stability, improving human rights, encouraging trade, investment, and meaningful economic development in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Throughout her career, Ambassador Malac worked extensively with the Department of Defense, USAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other U.S. government agencies and entities to advance U.S. national interests, ensure national security, resolve conflicts, build resilient health systems, broaden access to education, improve food security and create economic opportunity, especially for women and girls. Among other accomplishments, in 2014-15, Ambassador Malac led the U.S. Ebolavirus response efforts on the ground in Liberia, which included the U.S. military’s Operation United Assistance.

Ambassador Malac is a 2002 Distinguished Graduate of the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF), now the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. She also holds a M.A. from the University of Virginia and a B.A. from Furman University. Ambassador Malac retired from the Foreign Service in January 2020.