Ambassador Barks Ruggles served for 33 years in senior leadership and diplomatic positions; most recently leading the successful U.S. effort to rejoin UNESCO, setting up the U.S. Mission from scratch and re-establishing U.S. leadership in the U.N.’s lead institution on AI and emerging technology ethics, education standards, and cultural preservation especially in conflict areas.
She served as the Senior Representative and Head of Delegation to four major International Telecommunication Union conferences in 2022 and oversaw all U.S. policies and relationships with the United Nations while at the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO).
Prior to that, she was Senior Diplomatic Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and Acting Chancellor of the College of International Strategic Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University.
From 2015 to 2018, Barks Ruggles served as the Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Rwanda. Earlier in her career as a diplomat and civil servant, she served as the Deputy to the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations serving on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council, and as 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.