Carol Z. Perez | |
---|---|
United States Ambassador to Chile | |
Assumed office October 13, 2016 |
|
President |
Barack Obama Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Michael A. Hammer |
Personal details | |
Born | Cleveland, Ohio, United States |
Children | 3 |
Alma mater |
Hiram College George Washington University |
Carol Zelis Perez is a career Foreign Service Officer and the current U.S. Ambassador to Chile.
Perez was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Marymount High School in nearby Garfield Heights in 1971. She earned a bachelor of arts in political science at Hiram College in 1975 and subsequently a master’s degree in health care administration at George Washington University.
Perez joined the U.S. State Department in 1987. Most of her assignments have been administrative or consular in nature, with early postings as a special assistant in the office of the Under Secretary of State for Management, as operations officer in the State Department Operations Center, and as a consular officer in Madrid.
In 1994, Perez was made administrative and human relations officer at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. She returned to Washington in 1997 for a series of assignments, first as a supervisory general services officer, deputy executive director in the Executive Secretariat; then the following year as office director in the Secretariat staff office; and beginning in 1999 as deputy executive secretary. She was assigned overseas in 2001 as the Consul General in Barcelona.
Two years later, she was reassigned to Washington as Deputy Executive Secretary of the department. Part of her duties were organizing and staffing trips made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 2009, Perez was named Consul General in Milan.