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| Ambassador Susan Jacobs congratulates a child at an adopted children’s naturalization ceremony. |
While encouraging extensive audience
participation, Jacobs' evening program will focus on topics including child
abduction across borders and international adoption. As Special Advisor for
International Children’s Issues, she actively engages with foreign government
officials to protect the welfare and interests of children. She travels around
the world leading meetings with foreign representatives to discuss ways to
further promote The Hague Adoption and Abduction Conventions, and assist
signatory countries to meet their responsibilities on intercountry adoption and
international parental child abduction under the conventions. In relation to
the Symposium's focus on Latin American, these countries are the most common
destination of reported parental abductions, for example, the Sean Goldman case
that threatened U.S. Brazil relations.
As one of the first women at the U.S.
Department of State to serve as as a foreign ambassador, Ambassador Jacobs was
a Senior Policy Advisor in the Bureau of Consular Affairs and previously served
as the Bureau’s liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. From 2000-2003
she was the United States Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands
and Vanuatu. From April 1998 to October 2000 she served as the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Global Issues in the State Department's Bureau of Legislative
Affairs. Ambassador Jacobs joined the Foreign Service in 1974. Her early
assignments included tours as vice consul in Caracas, deputy consul general in
Tel Aviv, refugee officer in New Delhi, office director in the State
Department's Citizens Emergency Center, and special assistant to the Ambassador
in San Salvador.
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| Ambassador Jacobs meets with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom. |
In 1990 she returned to Washington, DC where
she served as an office director in the Bureau of International Organization
Affairs and then as a Legislative Management Officer in the Bureau of
Legislative Affairs. In 1994 she was senior policy advisor to the Commission on
Immigration Reform, and from 1995 to 1997 she was the U.S. Consul General in
Bucharest. A high point of her Bucharest tour was serving as the coordinator
for the July, 1996 visit of First Lady Hillary Clinton. In 1997 she attended
the Senior Seminar, a nine-month advanced professional development program
designed for senior foreign policy officials in the United States Government.
Ambassador Jacobs graduated from the
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she was a Regents Scholar, and later
studied at Georgetown University Law School and the George Washington
University. She has received numerous awards, including the Department of
State's Meritorious Honor Award, its Superior Honor Award; and the Community
Achievement Award in New Delhi.
