Alumni in Diplomacy Panel Discussion

Save the date for an April 22 panel featuring three accomplished Carolina alumni working in the world of diplomacy and international affairs. The event is part of UNC Global’s Diplomacy Week.

Join us on April 22 for a panel featuring three accomplished Carolina alumni working in the world of diplomacy and international affairs. The event is part of UNC Global’s Diplomacy Week.

Jennifer Davis is a career Foreign Service Officer who is currently completing a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship at Georgetown University and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and concurrently has just begun as a Senior Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Previously, Jennifer has served as the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, the executive assistant to U.S. Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She has served overseas tours in Colombia, Brussels (USNATO), and Mexico City, where she was special assistant to the ambassador. She has a bachelor’s with distinction and J.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kathryn Hewitt, is an experienced national security professional with a background in policy, research, project management, and public affairs. Kate is a public affairs specialist and spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Previously, she was a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace fellow and research assistant with the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy program focused on nuclear security and strategy. She also served in Peace Corps Moldova and held a nuclear technology and policy internship with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kate is a CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues Mid-Career Cadre fellow, recipient of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Rieser Award (2018), N Square Nuclear Security Innovation Fellowship (2018), and a Farsi Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (2017). She holds a dual bachelor’s in political science and philosophy from Gonzaga University and a master’s in global studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Erin O’Connor Minthorn is the senior director of government affairs at RESILIENCE, a next-generation manufacturing and technology company for complex medicines. Before joining Resilience, Erin was a policy director within Raytheon Technologies’ Global Government Relations organization. Prior to this position, she served as a career member of the Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State. During her near-decade of service, her assignments included serving as the chief of staff to the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, as well as roles within the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the African Affairs Bureau’s Office of East Africa, and overseas at the U.S. missions in London and Beirut. Erin received a master’s degree in political science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through the Transatlantic Masters Program, and received her bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Katie Lindner (moderator) is the Executive Director for the Center for European Studies. She joined the Center in 2015 from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where she spent many years managing and organizing programs including TAM, Euromasters, German-Turkish Masters as well as the international doctoral program at the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences. She focused on such aspects as program development, student and career services, international recruitment, and collaboration with international partners. Katie has a BA in International Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MA in Trans-Atlantic Studies (TAM Program) from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Before moving to Berlin, she worked at the International Visitors Council in RTP, which is where she discovered her love of organizing programs and international education.