Vanessa W. Golding

Vanessa W. Golding was a foreign affairs officer in the Office for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) at the U.S Department of State. She was policy and program officer for Indonesia, East Timor, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia. Prior to this, she was the lead for her bureau in the effort that resulted in the first-ever discussion of Burma in the UN Security Council in December 2005. Ms. Golding joined the State Department in 2002 through the Presidential Management Fellowship program where she first served as an Indonesian/East Timor Desk Officer in the Bureau for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and then as a Political Officer at U.S. Embassy, The Hague. Ms. Golding was subsequently chosen for a detail at the National Security Council in the G-8 Presidency Office where she worked directly for the U.S. Sherpa/International Economics Advisor to the President. Ms. Golding received her B.A. in cultural anthropology and Southeast Asian studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her Masters of Pacific International Affairs from the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego. She was awarded the IR/PS International Fellowship and used the opportunity to work at CNN Jakarta as an assistant producer in 2001.