February 2019
This month TLG salutes Lia Miller! Lia, a Public Diplomacy coned career Foreign Service Officer, has worked extensively on issues across the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America during her 15 years with the department. She is currently in language training to become the next Public Affairs Officer at U.S. Embassy Yerevan. She has also held assignments in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, the Operations Center, the Bureau of Public Affairs, the Office of Middle East Transitions, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and at the U.S. Embassies in Bolivia, Tunisia, Nicaragua, and Oman.
For Lia, one of the most exciting things about working at the State Department is “the flexibility and the variety of opportunities available.” She shares, “I have been able to work in every cone, serve in several different regions, work in the field and in D.C., and pursue different Department-sponsored career development opportunities over the years. This flexibility and these opportunities have enabled me to find success and fulfillment at work and beyond.”
Lia is a 2001 Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Fellowship alumna, a 2013-2014 Kathryn W. Davis Public Diplomacy Fellow,a 2015 International Career Advancement Program (ICAP) alumna, a 2015-2016 Excellence in Government (EIG) program alumna, and a multi-year former executive board member for the Pickering & Rangel Fellowship Association (PRFA). Lia is proud to have been named a 2018 Black American National Security & Foreign Policy Next GenerationLeader by New America and the Diversity in National Security Network and separately as a Regional Policy Expert by Women of Color Advancing Peace & Security (WCAPS). Outside of her work at the Department, Lia is a blogger/freelance writer and speaker. See her work at: https://www.liaworldtraveler.com.
Lia earned a Bachelor of Science with honors, with double majors in Social Work and African American studies, and dual Masters in Public Administration and International Relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Lia also holds a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University. She speaks Arabic, French, Portuguese and Spanish and is currently studying Armenian.