Maureen Cormack

Cormack received her B.A. in performing arts management from the University of Illinois. She worked for a Chicago law firm and the Ravinia Festival, an outdoor music series near Chicago, in fundraising, public relations, and artistic management.[1] Her personal love of the arts continues today, and much of her career in the Foreign Service has been spent in public and cultural affairs. In an interview in Bosnia, she said "I am a fan of the symphony, the opera and the ballet," which, in Sarajevo, she enjoys at the restored National Theater.[2] She then attended the University of Chicago, earning an M.A. in international relations in 1989.

Ambassador Cormack joined the Foreign Service in 1989, and in early assignments served as Director of the American Centers in Kwangju, South Korea and Warsaw, Poland. She then served as Deputy Cultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, and as Consul at the American Presence Post (APP) in western France.[3]

In 2005, Ambassador Cormack returned to Washington, DC and became a Pearson Fellow, working on Capitol Hill. The Pearson Fellowships give Foreign Service officers the chance to spend a year learning about the work of Congress. Cormack worked with the House Homeland Security Committee. In 2006, Cormack moved back to the State Department and became deputy director for Korean Affairs, where she served until 2009.

Towards the end of her tenure, she helped deal with the arrest of two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, by North Korea, who were eventually freed.

On January 6, 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Maureen Cormack, a career Foreign Service officer, as ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina.[1]

On August 23, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Eric Nelson of Texas to be U.S. ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina.[4] On February 19, 2019, Nelson presented his credentials to the Chairman of BiH Presidency as Ambassador of the United States, succeeding Cormack as the U.S. ambassador.[5]