Galt, Jennifer Ann Zimdahl, 1959-

<p>On August 5, 2015, the Senate, by voice vote, confirmed Jennifer Zimdahl Galt, a career Foreign Service officer, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Mongolia.</p>

<p>Galt is from Fort Collins, Colorado, where her father, Robert Zimdahl, was a professor of bio-agricultural sciences at Colorado State University. She attended Colorado College, graduating with a B.A. in political science, history and languages. She later earned an M.A. from Johns Hopkins and an M.S. from the National Defense University in 2008.</p>

<p>Galt joined the Foreign Service in 1988, with her first overseas assignment coming the following year as assistant cultural affairs officer in the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Beginning in 1992, she spent two years studying Mandarin Chinese, which would serve her well over the years. She was assigned in 1994 to the American Institute in Taipei, Taiwan, which serves the function of an embassy in that country.</p>

<p>She went to India in 1997 as the assistant public affairs officer in the consulate in Mumbai. In 2000, she was sent to Beijing as assistant cultural affairs officer and remained in China for her next posting beginning in 2003 as public affairs gfficer in the Shanghai consulate.</p>

<p>Galt returned to Washington in 2008 as deputy director of the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. She was sent to North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, first as public affairs advisor and the following year as senior public affairs advisor.</p>

<p>Galt went back to China in 2012 as the consul general in Guangzhou, supervising the 400-person office there.</p>

<p>Galt is married to Fritz Galt, who writes spy novels set, perhaps not so coincidentally, in some of the same places his wife has served. He also helped found a newsletter for Foreign Service spouses. They have two children, Dylan and Phoebe. Galt speaks Mandarin Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish and Serbian.</p>

<p>Jennifer Ann Zimdahl Galt (born 1959) is a U.S. diplomat and was the United States Ambassador to Mongolia from 2015 to 2017.</p>

<p>On May 6, 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Jennifer Zimdahl Galt to be Ambassador of the United States of America to Mongolia. She was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, 2015, and was sworn in on September 15, 2015.</p>

<p>Ambassador Galt, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, formerly served as Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate General, Guangzhou, China, where she had the privilege of leading and mentoring a talented team of nearly 500, comprising 133 American officers, of whom 62 were first- and second-tour, and over 300 locally engaged Chinese colleagues. Ambassador Galt’s previous postings overseas have included Belgrade, Taipei with the American Institute in Taiwan, Consulate General in Mumbai, Embassy in Beijing, Consulate General in Shanghai, and the U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels. In Washington, Ambassador Galt served as Senior Advisor in the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Public Affairs and as Deputy Director for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.</p>

<p>Ambassador Galt holds master's degrees from National Defense University and from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), as well as a bachelor's degree in political science, history and languages from Colorado College in her home state of Colorado. She is fluent in Mandarin and French, and also speaks Italian, Spanish and Serbian. She has two children, Phoebe and Dylan Galt and a husband, Fritz Galt.</p>