Dr. Cindy Lou Courville (born 1954) was the U.S. Ambassador to the African Union from 2006 to 2008. Previously she was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the

National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...

where she helped craft United States policy towards Africa.

Early life and education

Courville was raised in Opelousas, Louisiana and served as secretary of her town's

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

chapter when she was 15 years old. Her father worked for International Harvester while her mother was a seamstress and cook at Courville's childhood school. Ambassador Courville graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a B.A. and M.A. in political science and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Denver's

Graduate School of International Studies The Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver is a professional school of international affairs offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees. It is named in honor of the founding dean, Josef Korbel, father o ...

(now the Josef Korbel School of International Studies), in comparative politics and international relations.

Professional experience

Ambassador Courville currently serves as COO and EVP, PMIC Global. Ambassador Courville's professional experience includes ten years in the University arena as a member of the political science faculty at Hanover College in Indiana and

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

in Los Angeles. She was an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Zimbabwe; a

Shell Oil Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yor ...

Fellow at the University of Denver; and a Ford Minority Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 2008, Courville received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Government work

Ambassador Courville went to the NSC from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), where she served as a Senior Intelligence Officer in the Office of the Chief of Staff. In her career at DIA, she also served the Deputy Assistant Defense Intelligence Office for Africa Policy as a liaison to the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Africa, the National Security Council, the Department of State, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ambassador Courville was also the Director for

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

n Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense where she was responsible for the coordination of U.S. military and security policy with East Africa and the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. Ambassador Courville previously served as Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from June 2001 through August 2003.

References

External links

Cindy Courville bio

Courville Receives Honorary Doctorate from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
{{DEFAULTSORT:Courville, Cindy 1954 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) People from Opelousas, Louisiana University of Louisiana at Lafayette alumni University of Denver alumni Josef Korbel School of International Studies people Hanover College faculty Occidental College faculty Representatives of the United States to the African Union African-American diplomats American women ambassadors 21st-century American diplomats 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women