The Honorable Derek Hogan was appointed in fall 2018 as United States Ambassador to Moldova—the first Pickering Fellow to be appointed to the Ambassadorial ranks of the U.S. Foreign Service. A 1993 Fellow, Ambassador Hogan previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan.  He was Senior Advisor to President Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and served as State Department representative on two civilian-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan.  He has also served as Director of the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs in the State Department’s European Affairs Bureau.  In Washington D.C., he was Special Assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell and a Watch Officer in the State Department’s Operations Center.  His overseas posts include Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Russia, and Belarus.  Ambassador Hogan received his graduate degree in International Relations from Princeton University, and his undergraduate degree in Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of Pittsburgh.