Barbara K. Bodine
Ambassador (ret.) Barbara K. Bodine is lecturer in public policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she teaches courses on the Iraq War, on U.S. diplomacy in the Persian Gulf region, and on Yemen (Fall 2010). She also serves as Director of the School's Scholars in the Nation's Service Initiative, an intern and fellowship program for students pursuing careers in federal service.
Ms. Bodine's more than 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service were spent primarily on Arabian Peninsula and greater Persian Gulf issues, specifically U.S. bilateral and regional policy, strategic security issues, counterterrorism, and governance and reform. Her tour as Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen (1997-2001) saw enhanced support for democratization and increased security and counterterrorism cooperation. Ms. Bodine also served in Baghdad as Deputy Principal Officer during the Iran-Iraq War, in Kuwait as Deputy Chief of Mission during the Iraqi invasion and occupation (1990-1991), and again, seconded to the Department of Defense, in Iraq (2003) as the senior State Department official and the first coalition coordinator for reconstruction in Baghdad and the central governorates. Her first assignment in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs was as Country Officer for the Two Yemens and security assistance coordinator for the peninsula. She later returned to that office as Deputy Director.
In addition to several other assignment in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, she was Deputy for Operations, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and subsequently acting overall Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Director of East African Affairs, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, and Senior Advisor for International Security Negotiations and Agreements in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Ambassador Bodine is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Secretary's Award for Valor for her work in Occupied Kuwait and the Distinguished Service Award. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of American Diplomacy, and a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs.
Since leaving the government, Ambassador Bodine has been Director of the Governance Initiative in the Middle East at the Kennedy School of Government and the Robert Wilhelm Fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies. She is Past President of the Mine Awareness Group, America, a global NGO that provides technical expertise for the removal of remnants of conflict worldwide.
Ms. Bodine is a regular media commenter for The Newshour, CNN, NPR, the BBC, al Jazeera, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
A native of St. Louis (Missouri), Ms. Bodine is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. A recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Santa Barbara, she is a Regent Emerita University of California. She currently resides in Alexandria, VA.