Attkisson

Patricia Attkisson has been appointed public affairs officer and spokesperson for the United States Embassy in Kingston.

Mrs. Attkisson arrived in Jamaica in June. Her most recent previous diplomatic post was in Oslo, Norway, from March 2005 to March 2007 as assistant and then public affairs officer.

"Immediately previous to that, she was public diplomacy desk officer in the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, responsible for press and cultural matters in eight Baltic and Scandinavian countries," the U.S. Embassy said in a release this week.

Positions held

During her career, Mrs. Attkisson has served in Port Louis, Mauritius; Montreal, Canada; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In the Department of State, she has also held positions as programme officer in the Bureau of International Information Programmes, executive assistant and researcher in the Bosnia History Project, and press assistant in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs.

Mrs. Attkisson graduated from Trinity College, Washington, D.C., with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. She speaks Norwegian, French and Spanish.

She replaces Glenn Guimond, who left the island recently to take up a new post in Iraq.