Virginia E. Palmer

Chargé d’Affaires Virginia E. Palmer

Chargé d’Affaires

Virginia Palmer is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. She began her duties as Deputy Chief of Mission in Pretoria during August 2011 and with the departure of Ambassador Donald Gips on completion of his tour of duty in January 2013, is now the Chargé d’Affaires

Her previous post was in Hanoi, where she began as Deputy Chief of Mission in August 2008 and began serving as Charge d’Affaires, ad interim, on February 14, 2011. She was the Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism from September 2005 to May 2008. Prior to that, she was the Director of the East Asia Bureau’s Office of Economic Policy. She was Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Previous tours include Beijing, Hong Kong, Harare, Calgary, the Office of Maghreb Affairs, and the Operations Center in the State Department.

She has an M.A. from the University of Virginia and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University. She speaks Chinese and French. Virginia and her husband, Ismail Asmal, also a Foreign Service Officer, have two daughters.