Stephen Seche is a career foreign-service officer who has spent most of his 27 years with the Department of State engaged in the practice of public diplomacy. Seche was appointed to the position of Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria in February 2005, when the Ambassador was recalled to Washington for consultations in the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Seche taught a fall semester course in 2006 at USC's Master of Public Diplomacy program and advised graduate students interested in pursuing careers in foreign service. He was an integral part of the educational experience for the program’s master's degree students.

Mr. Seche entered the Foreign Service in 1978 and spent the first seven years of his career in public-diplomacy positions in Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia. Other overseas assignments included four years (1989 - 1993) as Information Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, and four years (1993 -1997) as Press Attache in New Delhi, India. Following his service in Delhi, he returned to Washington for the first of two years of Arabic language training, completing the program at the Foreign Service Institute's Field School in Tunis.

From 1999-2002, Mr. Seche was Counselor for Public Affairs and Director of the American Cultural Center. He spent the two years between his Damascus tours as Director of the Office for Egypt and Levant Affairs at the Department of State.

Mr. Seche received his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and spent four years as a journalist before entering the Foreign Service. He also speaks Spanish and French.