Melanie Anne Zimmerman, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Counselor, was most recently the acting Deputy Chief of Mission and the Minister Counselor for Multilateral, Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Her previous domestic assignments include Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. She also was detailed to the Department of Defense as a Foreign Policy Advisor to Special Operations Command Africa in Germany. Overseas she served as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mauritius and the Seychelles, Consul General in Quebec, Canada, and at U.S. Embassies in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso ; Lomé, Togo ; and Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Zimmerman was an Ambassadorial nominee, though never confirmed, to the Republic of Guinea.
Zimmerman holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland, an M.A. from the European Institute for Advanced International Relations in Nice, France, and a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland. She is the recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Political Advisor of the Year award, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award. She was twice knighted with the Legion of Honor (Togo and Burkina Faso) for her work on bilateral political-military affairs. She speaks fluent French and has rusty Spanish.