Joëlle Uzarski joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 2005. She served overseas at the U.S. embassies in Brazil, Chile, India, Pakistan and Thailand, where she directed State Department educational and cultural programs in 19 countries. Her most recent assignment was Cultural Attaché in Brasilia. In Washington, D.C., in 2005–06, she was the Program Officer for the English Access Microscholarship Program worldwide.
Prior to becoming a diplomat, Joëlle trained teachers and taught students in Korea, Brazil, and Spain, and she was a State Department Senior English Language Fellow in Uzbekistan. She earned her B.A. in Creative Writing and her Master’s in Applied Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is from Chicago. She is currently the USC Public Diplomat in Residence.