Cormack, Maureen Elizabeth, 1957-

<p>Maureen Elizabeth Cormack (born 1957) is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina.</p>

<p>Cormack received her B.A. in performing arts management from the University of Illinois. She worked for a Chicago law firm and the Ravinia Festival, an outdoor music series near Chicago, in fundraising, public relations, and artistic management. Her personal love of the arts continues today, and much of her career in the Foreign Service has been spent in public and cultural affairs. In an interview in Bosnia, she said "I am a fan of the symphony, the opera and the ballet," which, in Sarajevo, she enjoys at the restored National Theater. She then attended the University of Chicago, earning an M.A. in international relations in 1989.</p>

<p>Ambassador Cormack joined the Foreign Service in 1989, and in early assignments served as Director of the American Centers in Kwangju, South Korea and Warsaw, Poland. She then served as Deputy Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and as Consul at the American Presence Post (APP) in western France.</p>

<p>In 2005, Ambassador Cormack returned to Washington, DC and became a Pearson Fellow, working on Capitol Hill. The Pearson Fellowships give Foreign Service officers the chance to spend a year learning about the work of Congress. Cormack worked with the House Homeland Security Committee. In 2006, Cormack moved back to the State Department and became deputy director for Korean Affairs, where she served until 2009.</p>

<p>Towards the end of her tenure, she helped deal with the arrest of two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, by North Korea, who were eventually freed.</p>

<p>On January 6, 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Maureen Cormack, a career Foreign Service officer, as ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina.</p>

<p>Maureen Cormack is the acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. She served previously as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and Senior Advisor for the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, co-hosted by the United States and The Netherlands in The Hague in June 2019.</p>

<p>She was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina in January 2015. Prior to arriving in Sarajevo, Ambassador Cormack served in Washington D.C. as the Chief of Staff to the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL; as Principal Deputy Coordinator for the Bureau of International Information Programs, and as Executive Assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Previously, she held the positions of Director of the Office of Western European Affairs, Deputy Director for Korean Affairs, and served as a Pearson Fellow on the Homeland Security Committee of the House of Representatives.</p>

<p>Overseas, she served as Press Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Korea, as Deputy Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and as Consul at the American Presence Post in western France, covering the regions of Brittany, Normandy, and the Loire.</p>

<p>Maureen Cormack joined the Foreign Service in 1989 and in early assignments served as Director of the American Centers in Kwangju, South Korea and Warsaw, Poland. She returned to Washington, DC as European personnel officer for the former U.S. Information Agency.</p>

<p>Prior to joining the Foreign Service, she worked for the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in fundraising, public relations, and artistic management. She also worked for the Chicago law firm of Shefsky, Saitlin, and Froelich.</p>

<p>Ambassador Cormack has a B.A. in performing arts management from the University of Illinois, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago and a Diplome Semestriel from the University of Paris IV. She speaks French and has studied Bosnian, Polish, Korean, and Spanish.</p>