Monday, January 21, 2013

susan e rice -Bio

susan e rice



Susan E. Rice biography





Synopsis
Born in Washington, DC, on November 17, 1964, Susan E. Rice started her government career in 1993 with the National Security Council in Washington, DC, as the director of international organizations and peacekeeping. Her mentor, Madeline Albright, recommended Rice for the post of assistant secretary for African affairs in 1997 under President Clinton. She is currently the UN ambassador for the US.

Early Life
U.N. Ambassador, foreign policy advisor. Born Susan Elizbeth Rice in
Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1964, to parents Lois Dickson Fitt and
Emmett J. Rice. Rice's family is well renowned among the Washington
elite; father, Emmett, is a Cornell University economics professor and
former governor of the Federal Reserve System, while mother Lois is an
education policy researcher and guest scholar at the Brookings
Institution. Growing up, Rice's family often spoke of politics
and foreign policy at the dinner table. Her mother's job also brought
notable figures through the house, including Madeline Albright, with
whom Rice's mother served with on a local school board. Albright would
later become a pivotal figure in Rice's personal and professional life.Rice
attended National Cathedral School, a prep academy in Washington, D.C.
She excelled in academics, becoming her class valedictorian, and showed
her aptitude in the politic realm as president of the student council.
She also loved athletics, competing in three different sports, and
became a star point guard on the basketball team. After
graduation, Rice attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
In college, she pushed herself to excel. She not only earned
Departmental Honors and University Distinction, but also became a Harry
S. Truman scholar, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes
scholarship. She turned the heads of top administrators when she created
a fund that withheld alumni donations until the university either
stopped their investments in companies doing business in South Africa,
or the country ended apartheid.

Interest in Diplomacy
After she received her bachelor's degree in history in 1986, she went on to attend University of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. Here she earned her M.Phil and D.Phil in international relations, and wrote a dissertation that examined Rhodesia's transition from white rule. Her paper won the Royal Commonwealth Society's Walter Frewen Lord Prize for outstanding research in the field of Commonwealth History, as well as the Chatham House-British International Studies Association Prize for the most distinguished doctoral dissertation in the United Kingdom in the field of International Relations.
She finished her schooling in 1990, and started work as an international management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On Septmber 12, 1992, she married her Stanford romantic interest, Ian Cameron, who was working as a television producer in Toronto for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The couple lived in Canada until 1993, when Rice took a job with the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., under President Clinton.





She began work as the director of international organizations and peacekeeping for the NSC, where she had what she calls her "most searing experience" when she visited Rwanda during what was later classified as a genocide. "I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of decomposing corpses outside and inside a church," she says. "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. It makes you mad. It makes you determined. It makes you know that even if you're the last lone voice and you believe you're right, it is worth every bit of energy you can throw into it." She took the lessons learned from her peacekeeping position to a new post as special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs in 1995.

Government Appointments
She quickly advanced ahead of her peers and veteran officials when
her friend and mentor, Madeline Albright, recommended Rice for the post
of assistant secretary for African affairs in 1997. With her
appointment, she became one of the youngest assistant secretaries of
state ever. Many elder politicians disagreed with placing a young woman
in the position, arguing that she would be unable to deal with older,
male leaders. But Rice developed a reputation for her direct,
plainspoken opinions, and an ability to bring people to her side of the
table. "They have no choice but to deal with me on professional terms. I
represent the United States of America," she says. "Yeah, they may do a
double take, but then they have to listen to what you say, how you say
it and what you do about what you say."During her tenure in this
post, she also became well acquainted with the actions of the extremist
group, Al Qaeda; she was the top diplomat for African issues during the
1998 terrorist bombings of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Her
involvement and rise into politics mirrored that of Condoleezza Rice,
the secretary of state under President George W. Bush. The two are both
female, African-American, foreign policy experts who have ties to
Stanford University. However, the two are not related. The mix-up has
happened so often that Democrats have a saying about the confusion:
"They've got their Rice, and we've got ours."

U.N. Ambassador
Rice left the public sector in 2002 to become a senior fellow in foreign policy for the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Their mission is to conduct independent research and provide recommendations to the government based on their findings. As a fellow, Rice specialized in research on U.S. foreign policy, weak and failing states, as well as the implications of global poverty and transnational security threats.
Rice took leave from Brookings in 2008, to become the senior foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. After Obama's successful election in November of 2008, Rice was nominated to be the U.N. Ambassador for the United States. On January 22, 2009, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.




Rice and her husband have two children, and currently reside in Washington, D.C.


susan e rice

Quick Facts

Best Known For

Susan Rice is a foreign policy expert and was assistant secretary for African affairs in 1997 under President Clinton.


susan e rice

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