"South Asia in the Spotlight: Afghanistan at a Crossroads" is the title of a lecture to be presented Wednesday, Dec. 12, on campus.
Robin Raphel, who served as the U.S. State Department's first assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1993 to 1997, will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.
Raphel was U.S. ambassador to Tunisia from 1997 until September 2000, when she was named senior vice president at the National Defense University. She began her career with the federal government in 1974 as an economic analyst for the CIA. She subsequently held positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan, in the State Department's Office of Investment Affairs, with the assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs and with the undersecretary of state for political affairs. In 1984 she was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in London where she covered the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia and Africa. She also has served as a political counselor at U.S. embassies in South Africa and India.
The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs' Office of External Affairs.