Cynthia Kierscht

Kierscht is a 1983 graduate of Fargo North High School.[1] She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College and her Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.[2]

Kierscht is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Counselor. She served as the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Canadian Affairs for the State Department. She currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Canada, Haiti and the Caribbean in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.[3] She has served in different capacities at United States Embassies; From 2013 to 2016, while in Bogotá, Colombia she served as the Cultural Affairs Officer and as the Deputy Management Counselor from 2011 to 2013. Other assignments include Rabat, Morocco, and Cairo, Egypt, as well as serving in the United States Consulate in Marseille, France, and at the United States Interests Section in Tripoli, Libya. Among her other assignments at the State Department, Kierscht worked in the Executive Secretariat and the Operations Center, in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and in the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism.[2]

On June 15, 2020, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Kiersch to be the next United States Ambassador to Mauritania. On June 18, 2020, her nomination was sent to the Senate.[4] She appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 2 and was confirmed by voice vote of the full Senate in the early morning hours of December 22, 2020.[5]

Kierscht speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish.[2]

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