New Delhi: The United States President Joe Biden has named an Indian-origin diplomat, Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, to serve as the United States Ambassador to Indonesia.
Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, with nearly three decades of service at the State Department, holds the distinguished rank of Minister-Counsellor within the Senior Foreign Service. Her most recent role was as the Executive Secretary of the Department of State, said the White House.
In the 1940s, her father, Noor, immigrated to the US from Mumbai to pursue studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Lakhdhir is a Harvard graduate with a Master’s degree from the National War College. She served as the ambassador to Malaysia from 2017 to 2021. Before this role, she was the US Consul General in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 2009 to 2011.
In 1991, she embarked on her journey in the Foreign Service, eventually assuming the pivotal role of Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asian Affairs, overseeing US relations with Indonesia. During the earlier stages of her career, she also held the position of Deputy Coordinator within the Taiwan Coordination Staff, part of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.