Sison, Michele Jeanne, 1959-

<p>Michele Jeanne Sison (born May 27, 1959 in Arlington, Virginia) is an American diplomat and career member of the Senior Foreign Service currently serving as the United States Ambassador to Haiti. She has previously served in various other diplomatic posts around the world on behalf of the United States.</p>

<p>Sison earned her B.A. in political science from Wellesley College and also studied at the London School of Economics. She has two daughters.</p>

<p>Sison's overseas assignments have included service as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan (1999–2002) and as consul General at the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, India (1996–1999). She also served at the U.S. Missions in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (1993–1996); Douala, Cameroon (1991–1993); Cotonou, Benin (1988–1991); Lomé, Togo (1984–1988); and Port-au-Prince, Haiti (1982–1984), as well as in Washington. Ambassador Sison is the recipient of numerous U.S. Department of State awards for exceptional service.</p>

<p>She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as United States Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates on May 6, 2004, and sworn in by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on July 12, 2004. Prior to her appointment to the UAE, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs, charged with providing broad policy oversight of U.S. relations with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.</p>

<p>She also had a short stint as the U.S. Chargés d'affaires a.i. in Lebanon, before her Senate confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon on August 1, 2008. Sison's assignment in Lebanon ended in August 2010.</p>

<p>She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 29, 2012, as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.</p>

<p>On July 8, 2014, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Sison as Deputy Representative of the United States to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador, and Deputy Representative of the United States in the Security Council of the United Nations. She was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote on November 19, 2014.</p>

<p>On November 2, 2017, she was confirmed by the Senate to serve as the United States Ambassador to Haiti, having been nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump. Among the major issues facing her in her new role will be navigating a response by the United Nations to victims of a cholera epidemic the organization started in October 2010. She will also be confronted with the U.S. government's pending decision on whether or not to extend Temporary Protected Status to Haitian immigrants who were in the U.S. at the time of the massive earthquake in Port-au-Prince in January 2010.</p>

<p>Michele Sison was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Haiti by President Donald Drumpf on July 20, 2017. Sison, who has been deputy permanent representative to the United Nations since December 2014, succeeds Peter Mulrean, who served in Port-au-Prince from October 2015 to February 2017.</p>

<p>In her role at the United Nations, just a month before her nomination, Sison made it clear that the Drumpf administration did not intend to contribute to a UN trust fund to fight Haiti’s cholera epidemic because the U.S. had already contributed more than $100 million to the anti-cholera effort. It is widely believed that cholera was inadvertently introduced into Haiti by UN peacekeepers from Nepal in October 2010.</p>

<p>Born May 27, 1959, in Arlington, Virginia, Michele Jeanne Sison is the first Filipino-American ambassador from the United States. Her mother is Veronica Travers Sison. Her father, Pastor Bravo Sison, originally from the province of Pangasinan in the Philippines, earned a master's degree from Harvard Law School and eventually spent 25 years with the World Bank, retiring as director for public affairs in its Asia Division. She has two sisters, Victoria and Cynthia. Sison earned her BA in Political Science from Wellesley College in 1981 and also studied at the London School of Economics.</p>

<p>Sison joined the State Department in 1982 and served early career postings as a consular official in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from 1982 to 1984; Lomé, Togo, from 1984 to 1988; Cotonou, Benin, from 1988 to 1991; Douala, Cameroon, from 1991 to 1993; and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 1993 to 1996. Sison served as consul general at the U.S. consulate in Chennai, India, from 1996 to 1999.</p>

<p>She was deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. Just one month before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Sison met with Taliban officials to try to secure the release of American aid workers who had been arrested in Afghanistan for allegedly showing a Christian video to an Afghan family. The following March, Sison was out jogging and waved to embassy employee Barbara Green and her 17-year-old daughter, Kristen Wormsley, who drove by on their way to church. Shortly thereafter, the two were killed in a grenade attack on the church.</p>

<p>In Washington, Sison served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs from 2002 to 2004, after which she was appointed ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where she served from July 2004 to January 2008, putting a strong emphasis on promoting trade with the Dubai dictatorship, a strategy she referred to as “massive corporate diplomacy.”</p>

<p>From the UAE she went to Lebanon, serving in Beirut as chargé d’affaires ad interim starting in February and as ambassador from June 2008 to August 2010. Her tour in Lebanon was a demanding one right from the start, as she had to deal with numerous controversial issues. For example, in April 2008, she sent a cable to the State Department explaining that Lebanon’s telecommunications minister, Marwan Hamadeh, had complained that Hezbollah (which held elected seats in the national legislature and a cabinet position) had set up its own fiber optic telecom network, which, in Sison’s words, “covers the Palestinian camps, and the Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa, and is penetrating deep into the Christian Metn and Kesrwan areas.” On June 18, 2008, she was involved in a particularly unpleasant incident, when her motorcade in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatiyah was stoned by anti-American pro-Hezbollah militants.</p>

<p>After her tour in Lebanon, Sison served as assistant chief of mission for Law Enforcement and Rule of Law Assistance in Baghdad, Iraq. She also served stateside as director of Career Development and Assignments in the Bureau of Human Resources from 2010 to 2011.</p>

<p>Sison returned to South Asia to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives from September 2012 to December 2014.</p>

<p>As U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, Sison again found herself in the thick of the action, particularly in 2016 when the Obama administration clashed with the Russian government over the war in Syria. In March 2017, she accused the government of South Sudan of conducting a “scorched earth campaign” that used man-made famine as a tactic in that country’s civil war.</p>

<p>Sison has two daughters, Alexandra and Jessica; she and their father, Jeffrey J. Hawkins, are divorced. She speaks fluent French, basic Haitian Creole, and Arabic.</p>

<p>Ambassador Michele Sison was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti on February 12, 2018. She served as U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations (2014-2018), U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives (2012-2014), U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon (2008-2010), and U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (2004-2008). She began her diplomatic career in Haiti in 1982, serving as the human rights officer at Embassy Port au Prince.</p>

<p>Ambassador Sison’s diplomatic assignments also include Assistant Chief of Mission in Baghdad, Iraq; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, Pakistan; Consul General in Chennai, India; and tours in Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, and Togo. She also served as the State Department’s Director of Career Development and Assignments. Ambassador Sison is the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Service Award, U.S. Presidential Meritorious Service Award, and the U.S. Department of the Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. She also holds numerous U.S. Department of State awards, including Superior Honor Awards and Ambassadorial-level awards for her contributions to counter-proliferation (2008) and combatting trafficking in persons (2005). Ambassador Sison holds the rank of Career Ambassador.</p>