Patricia Hawkins, a career foreign service officer, joined the United States International Communications Agency, later USIA, in 1980. Her first tour was in Paris, where she served as the Assistant Information Officer and Deputy Press Attaché. She subsequently served as Information Officer in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, as Public Affairs Officer in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, as Cultural Affairs Officer in Bogotá, Colombia, as Counselor for Public Affairs in Abidjan, Cộte d’ Ivoire, where she also served briefly as Acting DCM and then for several months as Chargé d’Affaires. In 2001, she was posted to the Dominican Republic, as Counselor for Public Affairs. Her most recent assignments have been in Washington, DC, as Policy Application and Coordination Officer in the Office of Public Affairs of the Bureau of African Affairs, and as a Career Development Officer in the Bureau of Human Resources.
A native of Pennsylvania, Pat attended Barnard College in New York City and graduated from East Stroudsburg University with a B.S. in Education. She studied French at Georgetown University, the Université de Dijon, and NYU. Before joining the Foreign Service, Pat taught in both elementary and secondary schools in France and Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Richard S.D. Hawkins, also a career Foreign Service Officer, have two grown children, Frédéric and Jessica.
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