The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is delighted to welcome Ambassador Adrienne S. O'Neal to our Advisory Board. Ambassador O'Neal had a distinguished 32-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service serving in overseas assignments in Europe, South America, and Africa. She was the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Cape Verde from 2011 to 2015. O'Neal also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal and Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other overseas diplomatic assignments have been in Mozambique, Argentina and Italy.
In Washington, her assignments included key positions in the Bureau of Human Resources, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Bureau of African Affairs at State, and Deputy Press Secretary to the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). She was also State Department Diplomat-in-Residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2007-2008.
O'Neal graduated from Spelman College in 1976 with dual Bachelor's Degrees in Spanish Language and Business Administration. Two years later, she graduated from Middlebury College with a Master of Modern Languages degree in Spanish Language and Literature. In 1983, after a brief period in the Ph.D. program in Spanish and Portuguese Literature at the University of Minnesota, she entered the U.S. Foreign Service.
MEMRI Vice President Alberto M. Fernandez added: "With her multi-faceted experience, insight, and background, Ambassador O'Neal will surely enrich our work and help advance our global mission moving into the future."
The MEMRI Board of Advisors and Board of Directors include distinguished figures from government, media, law and academia from around the world. Among them are former prime ministers, attorneys-generals, justice ministers, legal and counterterrorism experts, senior military officers and diplomats and recipients of the most prestigious awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. Members of the MEMRI Board of Advisors are bipartisan and have honorably served Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
ABOUT MEMRI
Exploring the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond through their media, MEMRI (https://www.memri.org/) bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and Eurasia, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, Turkish, Russian and Chinese media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends.
Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI (https://www.memri.org/) is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI's main office is located in Washington, DC, with branch offices in various world capitals. MEMRI research is translated into English, French, Polish, Japanese, Spanish and Hebrew.
