McMullen, Christopher Jay, 1952-

Christopher J. McMullen (1952–) is a professor and former diplomat. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, he served as U.S. ambassador to Angola from November 17, 2010 until June 12, 2013.

Raised in Pennsylvania, McMullen graduated from from the National War College with an undergraduate degree and Georgetown University with a PhD in history. He was later employed at Georgetown and George Mason University teaching Latin American history. He then worked in the office of Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) as a foreign affairs fellow and as a senior analyst for the Department of Defense.

After joining the Foreign Service, his overseas assignments took him to Nicaragua, Malaysia, El Salvador, Tanzania and Colombia before he served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Panama (2003-2005), and as consul general in São Paulo, Brazil (2005-2007). Prior to his ambassadorship, he was serving as deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

McMullen and his wife, Laurel, were co-plaintiffs in a suit “filed against the governments of Sudan and Iran regarding responsibility for the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.