Cheryl Jane Sim

DCM Cheryl Jane Sim (Dpt of State)

Cheryl Sim arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan, August 16, 2012, where she serves as Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM).  She most recently was assigned as Deputy Special Representative for Somalia (Counselor for Somalia Affairs) in the Somalia Unit that is currently located at the U.S. Mission in Nairobi.  As Deputy Special Representative, Ms. Sim traveled extensively in the Horn of Africa region, including to Somalia, to advance the core U.S. policy objectives of bringing peace and security to Somalia, and managed the work of the Somalia Unit. 

Prior to her arrival in Nairobi, Ms. Sim was spent several months as the Division Director of INR’s Office of War Crimes, Atrocities, Human Rights and Democracy (2009-10).  This assignment built upon her previous postings as Counselor for Political and Specialized Agencies Affairs (1999-2002) at the U.S. Mission in Geneva where she oversaw USG engagement with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization and UNAIDs, and in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.  During the 2002-03 academic year, Ms. Sim was a Fellow at the Atlantic Council where she researched and wrote on U.S. exceptionalism and its impact on international human rights processes and mechanisms. 

Abidjan is Ms. Sim’s fifth posting in Africa.  From 2007 to 2009, she was DCM and Charge d’Affaires a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, where she led President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) team and managed the Embassy’s growth from a traditionally hard-to-fill post into a fully-functioning mid-sized mission.  Her other assignments in Africa were at the U.S. embassies in Antananarivo, Madagascar and Mogadishu, Somalia.

Ms. Sim joined the Foreign Service following graduate studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs where she focused on Southern Asia.  Her related southern Asia assignments as a Foreign Service Officer were as Deputy Office Director in both the South/Central Asia Bureau’s Office of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka (2005-07) and the East Asia and Pacific Bureau’s Office of Mainland Southeast Asia (2003-2005).  She served in Calcutta as Principal Officer (1996-99) as well as in Bangkok and Bombay.

Ms. Sim is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She is married to Commander Richard Sim (USN - rtd) and they have one son.