Avis Bohlen
Monday, June 14, 2010 at 12 Noon
Topic: Nuclear Proliferation and Diplomacy
Avis Bohlen is an adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. She served for 25 years as a career foreign service officer with the US State Department and 30 years with the US government, retiring from the U.S. State Department in May 2002. She has also served as Assistant Secretary for Arms Control (1999-2002), Ambassador to Bulgaria (1996-1999), and Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Paris (1991-1995).
Prior to that, Ms. Bohlen worked on numerous assignments in the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs. She was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe in charge of security issues and served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff. Over the years, she has been involved in policy on a wide range of issues relating to U.S.-European relations, U.S. relations with France, European security issues, arms control, and Soviet affairs.
Before joining the Foreign Service in 1979, Ms. Bohlen worked for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She earned her MA from Columbia University (1965) and BA from Radcliffe College (1961). From September 2002 to May 2003, she was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. She was published in the September 2003 issue of Survival for her article, “Rise and Fall of Arms Control.” Ms. Bohlen is a member of the International Commission on the Balkans, the Defense Advisory Committee at the Center for Naval Analysis, and currently serves as Chairman of the Board of IREX (International Research and Exchanges). She is also on the Boards of the Atlantic Council of the United States, the American Academy of Diplomacy, the American College of Sofia, and the Arms Control Association.