Heather C. Merritt

Deputy Chief of Mission, Heather C. Merritt

Heather Merritt has been the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Luanda, Angola since June 2012. Heather joined the U.S. Foreign Service as a political officer in 1998. Her first overseas postings were as Vice Consul in Monterrey, Mexico and Assistant Public Affairs Officer in Harare, Zimbabwe. She then returned to Washington for a tour as a Desk Officer for Colombia in the WHA bureau. While on the Colombia desk, Heather coordinated several contentious, congressionally-mandated "Human Rights Certification" reports which argued that the Colombian government had made sufficient progress on meeting key military and human rights benchmarks and could therefore receive its next multi-million dollar tranche of assistance under the "Plan Colombia" program. This certification required careful coordination with various USG elements as well as the Colombian government and the very vocal human rights community. Heather's work on Colombia human rights certifications earned her a Superior Honor Award from the Department in 2005.

Heather's next assignment was to Abuja, Nigeria as Deputy Political Counselor, where she received a Superior Honor Award for coordinating the Embassy's election observation efforts and elections reporting during Nigeria's controversial 2007 presidential poll. In 2008, she moved to Gaborone, Botswana where she served as the Political/Economic Section Chief until 2011. While in Botswana Heather also engaged with the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Born and raised in Rockford, Illinois (a medium-sized town north of Chicago), Heather attended Northern Illinois University where she earned her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Political Science. As an undergraduate, she spent a semester at Charles University in Prague, and during this time she realized that she was interested in living and working abroad, perhaps for the State Department.

Heather is married to Scott Merritt, an IT professional with experience in applying technology to solve health and development challenges in Africa. They have two children. Heather speaks Portuguese and Spanish and in her free time she enjoys reading, travel, taking walks, and spending time with family.