Margaret Hawthorne

Deputy Chief of Mission Margaret Hawthorne

Margaret Hawthorne is on a three-year assignment as Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Belmopan.  She is a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service.  Her most recent overseas assignment was as the head of the Political External unit at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia from 2007-2009.  She has also served in Madrid, Spain; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and the U.S. Mission to the UN in New York.  In Washington, D.C., her assignments have included the NATO affairs office, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, Senior France Desk Officer, and Director of Regional Affairs in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.  From 2009-2010, she was a Pearson Fellow on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. Congress, and she is a 2011 graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) at National Defense University.  Ms. Hawthorne has received the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Hawthorne was an attorney in Washington, D.C., specializing in civil litigation.  A native of Chicago, Illinois, she holds a J.D. cum laude from George Washington University, an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago, an M. Sc. in National Security and Resource Strategy from ICAF, and a B.A. cum laude from Denison University.  She speaks Spanish, Russian and French.