SIA Faculty Coffee Chat: Ambassador Jett
Date & Time: September 28, 2021 | 09:00 PM – July 16, 2024 | 07:30 AM
Location: Katz Atrium
Join us on Tuesday, September 28 for our first Faculty Coffee Chat of the fall 2021 semester—featuring Ambassador Dennis Jett.
Ambassador Jett is a professor of international affairs and founding faculty member of the Penn State School of International Affairs whose distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service spanned 28 years and three continents.
His career with the U.S. Department of State began in 1973, when he was a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1989, he became the deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Malawi, where he assisted in the response to an influx of more than 500,000 Mozambican refugees. He was then sent to be deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Liberia shortly before the start of the civil war in that country. For his service in Liberia during this tumultuous time, he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award. Jett then became special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for Africa policy during the first six months of the Clinton Administration. He went on to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Mozambique (1993-1996) and Peru (1996-1999).
His academic research interests focus on international relations, peacekeeping and U.S. foreign policy.