Deputy Chief of Mission Jessye Lapenn

Jessye Lapenn, Deputy Chief of Mission

Jessye Lapenn assumed her role as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali on July 18, 2012.

Ms. Lapenn entered the U.S. Foreign Service October, 1994.  Her overseas tours have taken her to Jeddah, Riyadh, Paris, Tbilisi, Baghdad and Jerusalem. Notably, in Jerusalem, she was the Chief of the Political Section at the U.S. Consulate General.  While based at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, she was responsible for regional refugee issues and assistance in the South Caucuses and Central Asia. 

At the Department of State in Washington, D.C., Ms. Lapenn served on the staff of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, as the desk officer for Libya and Tunisia and as the director of the Office of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the Bureau of International Organizations. In the latter role, she led U.S. engagement at the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.  Ms. Lapenn advised the U.S.

Delegation to the United Nations in New York on Security Council matters and was a State Department fellow for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ms. Lapenn was born and raised in New York City. She received a BA in Women's Studies from Harvard College and an M.Phil in International Development from Cambridge University. She lives in Kigali with her three year old son Jasper.