In the News: Bernicat ’75 Is New U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh
Marcia Bloom Bernicat ’75 began her role as U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh Feb. 4 when she presented her credentials to President Md Abdul Hamid.
The next day, she met with Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque at the foreign ministry. “We have such a big and broad relationship. I have a direct mandate to make it even stronger, and I look forward to doing so,” she is quoted as saying in a bdnews24.com article (Feb. 6).
Bernicat, who has more than 30 years’ experience as an overseas officer for the U.S. Department of State, served as U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau from 2008 to 2011.
A history graduate, she became a student of diplomacy at Lafayette. Mentored by her thesis adviser, Robert Weiner, Jones Professor of History, she became interested in the League of Nations and in the seesawing relationship between the United States and the United Nations, the League’s successor. She holds a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.