WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve in key roles promoting U.S. foreign policy and national security:

Mark Brzezinski, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Poland
Elizabeth Anne Noseworthy Fitzsimmons, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Togolese Republic
Rebecca Eliza Gonzales, Nominee for Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador, Department of State
Brian Wesley Shukan, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Benin
David John Young, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Malawi
Adriana Kugler, Nominee for U.S. Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Oren Whyche-Shaw, Nominee for U.S. Director of the African Development Bank
Corey Hinderstein, Nominee for Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, Department of Energy
David Honey, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, Department of Defense

Mark Brzezinski, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Poland

Mark Brzezinski is founder and principal of Brzezinski Strategies LLC. Previously, he was Managing Director at Makena Capital Management, where he focused on responding to the growing demand for environmentally and socially responsible investment portfolios. Prior to Makena, Brzezinski served as the first Executive Director of the White House’s Arctic Executive Steering Committee and before that was the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden between 2011-2015. Earlier, Brzezinski was a partner at McGuireWoods LLP in Washington, D.C. From 1999 to 2001, he served on President Clinton’s National Security Council, first as a Director for Russia and Eurasia, and then as a Director for the Balkans. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Poland and is the author of “The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland.” He is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

Brzezinski received a BA from Dartmouth College, a JD from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Political Science from Oxford University. His foreign languages are Polish and French. He was awarded the Royal Order of the Polar Star by the King of Sweden and is a recipient of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

Elizabeth Anne Noseworthy Fitzsimmons, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Togolese Republic

Elizabeth Anne Noseworthy Fitzsimmons, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. From 2018-2021, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Africa and Public Diplomacy. Prior to that, she was Acting Deputy Spokesperson for the Department. Previous assignments include Deputy Executive Secretary to Secretaries Kerry and Tillerson, Senior Advisor at the Foreign Service Institute, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, and the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fitzsimmons has served overseas in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, India and Bulgaria. She has also worked in the State Department’s Operations Center and as Deputy Director of the State Department’s Executive Secretariat. She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia. Fitzsimmons speaks Bulgarian, French and Chinese.

Rebecca Eliza Gonzales, Nominee for Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador, Department of State

Rebecca Gonzales, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Lesotho. Previously, she served as the Chief of Staff in the Bureau of Administration at the Department of State. She also served as the Deputy Executive Director of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; as Deputy Management Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa; Management Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana; and Special Assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the Department of State. Other assignments for Ambassador Gonzales include service in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and at U.S. embassies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; New Delhi, India; Bogota, Colombia; and Athens, Greece. Ambassador Gonzales earned a B.A. and an M.B.A. from The George Washington University and an M.S. from the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. She speaks Spanish and Greek.

Brian Wesley Shukan, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Benin

Brian W. Shukan, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is the Chargé d’Affaires a.i. and Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. He previously served as Director of the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan at the Department of State. Shukan also served as Chargé d’Affaires a.i. and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and as Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Casablanca, Morocco. His other overseas experience includes service at the U.S. embassies in Ghana, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Luxembourg and Benin. Shukan is the recipient of numerous awards, including the James V. Forrestal Award for Excellence in Strategy and Force Planning at the U.S. Naval War College. He earned a Bachelors Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and an M.A. with distinction from the U.S. Naval War College. He speaks French and Arabic.

David John Young, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Malawi

David Young, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia. Previously he served as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. Prior to that, he was Deputy Director, Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan & South Sudan, and he also served as Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs at the State Department. Among his other assignments, Young was a Pearson Fellow; a Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala; and Director, Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights at the State Department. Young earned his B.A. degree in journalism from the University of Missouri; a Diploma from Trinity College, University of Dublin; and Master degrees in divinity and international relations from Boston University.

Adriana Kugler, Nominee for U.S. Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Dr. Adriana Kugler is a Full Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Dr. Kugler was Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor under the Obama-Biden Administration between 2011 and 2013. Dr. Kugler served as Vice Provost for Faculty at Georgetown University between 2013 and 2016. Dr. Kugler was a member of the Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and served in the Technical Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dr. Kugler was Chair and Chair-elect of the Business and Economics Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association in 2020 and 2019, respectively. She was an elected member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Labor Economists and of the Executive Committee of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association.

Dr. Kugler completed her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and obtained a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from McGill University with first class honors. Dr. Kugler graduated high school in the public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. She is married to Ignacio Donoso; they have two children − Daniel and Mireille.

Oren Whyche-Shaw, Nominee for U.S. Director of the African Development Bank

Until retirement in July 2020, Oren E. Whyche-Shaw was Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Africa Bureau and the Coordinator for President Obama’s Partnership in Growth and the Trade Africa Initiative at the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington, DC. Prior to joining USAID in 2011, Ms. Whyche-Shaw served as the Director for the Office of African Nations and as Senior Advisor in the Multilateral Development Bank Office of the Department of Treasury.

Ms. Whyche-Shaw holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Theoretical Mathematics and French from Capital University in Columbus, OH. As the first Citibank Fellow, she received a master’s degree in Finance, Money and Financial Markets, and International Business from Columbia University’s Business School. Ms. Whyche-Shaw served as the Senior Special Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission when selected as a White House Fellow in 1983. Ms. Whyche-Shaw has lived and worked internationally in more than 50 countries in over 30 years.

Corey Hinderstein, Nominee for Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, Department of Energy

Corey Hinderstein is vice president of International Fuel Cycle Strategies at the Nuclear Threat Initiative based in Washington, DC, where she focuses on international nuclear fuel cycle and nonproliferation policy, global nuclear security, and arms control and nonproliferation monitoring and verification. From February 2015 through November 2017, Ms. Hinderstein was senior coordinator for nuclear security and nonproliferation policy affairs at the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation office of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). At NNSA, she led the DOE’s preparations for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit and worked on other projects related to nuclear security and illicit trafficking, Iran’s nuclear program, and international monitoring and verification. Prior to her service at DOE, Ms. Hinderstein had been with NTI since 2006 and earlier was deputy director of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Ms. Hinderstein is a past president and Fellow of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) and serves on the board of directors for the World Institute for Nuclear Security. She also has served in advisory capacities for multiple national laboratories and has published widely on nuclear nonproliferation, verification and monitoring and nuclear security. Ms. Hinderstein graduated from Clark University in Worcester, MA where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

David Honey, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, Department of Defense

Dr. David Honey is a Special Assistant to the Director of the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA), where he helps guide collaborations with other agencies. In an earlier DARPA tour, he served as a Program Manager, Deputy Office Director, and Office Director. Dr. Honey previously served as the Director of Science and Technology in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research in the Department of Defense, and as senior vice president of a small business.

Dr. Honey is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who began his military career as a pilot and later transitioned into research and development. He holds a Doctorate from Syracuse University, Master of Science degrees from the University of Arizona and the Air Force Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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