Assistant Secretaries of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
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Updates to the Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission database are currently suspended. For information about the Department’s current and recent leadership, we recommend visiting the Department of State homepage’s Biographies of Senior Officials and List of U.S. Ambassadors.
Notice posted on January 12, 2024.
Last
updated March 14, 2024.
On Oct 18, 1973, Congress in the Department of State Appropriations Authorization Act (P.L. 93-126; 87 Stat. 453) authorized a Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and specified that it be headed by an Assistant Secretary of State. The new Bureau, established on Oct 8, 1974, incorporated the duties and responsibilities of several components in the Department of State, which were then abolished. These were: the Office of International Scientific and Technological Affairs, whose Director had held rank equivalent to an Assistant Secretary of State since 1965; the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Fisheries and Wildlife and Coordinator of Ocean Affairs; the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Population Matters; and the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Environmental Affairs. The Department had first appointed a Science Adviser in 1958.
- Dixy Lee Ray (1975)
- Frederick Irving (1976–1977)
- Patsy Takemoto Mink (1977–1978)
- Thomas Reeve Pickering (1978–1981)
- James L. Malone (1981–1985)
- John Dimitri Negroponte (1985–1987)
- Frederick M. Bernthal (1988–1990)
- E.U. Curtis Bohlen (1990–1992)
- Elinor Greer Constable (1993–1995)
- Eileen B. Claussen (1997)
- David B. Sandalow (1999–2001)
- John F. Turner (2001–2005)
- Claudia A. McMurray (2006–2009)
- Kerri-Ann Jones (2009–2014)
- Jennifer A. Haverkamp (Nomination of September 8, 2014, not acted upon by the Senate.)