President George W. Bush has announced the nomination of Ambassador June Carter Perry, currently ambassador to the Kingdom of Lesotho, to be his next ambassador to the Republic of Sierra Leone, subject to confirmation by the United States’ Senate. Ambassador Perry will replace Ambassador Thomas N. Hull who arrived in Freetown in August 2004 and will depart after his three years’ appointment expires in August 2007 to become a professor of international relations.
Ambassador Perry has also served as deputy chief of mission at the American Embassies in the Central African Republic and Madagascar and in other diplomatic assignments in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and France. Her most recent assignment in Washington was as director of the Office of Social and Humanitarian Affairs in the State Department’s International Organizations Bureau with responsibility for policy matters within the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, and the Commission of the Status of Women. Her other Washington assignments have included Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State and positions in African Affairs and Political Military Affairs.
Ambassador Perry is a graduate of Loyola University of Chicago (B.A) and the University of Chicago (M.A.), and the State Department’s Senior Seminar. She has been a Diplomat in Residence at Howard University in Washington, and before joining the Foreign Service was an instructor at the University of Maryland and at North Carolina A&T University. Also before joining the Foreign Service, she was Director of Public Affairs at ACTION, an agency that included the Peace Corps; Special Assistant at the Community Services Administration; and Director of Public Affairs at WGMS/RKO Radio Corporation. She has also lived in Guyana, Micronesia and Malaysia.
Ambassador Hull is retiring from the Department of State, and has been appointed to the Warburg Chair in International Relations at Simmons College, where he will begin teaching in September, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
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