Virtual: Women’s Leadership in the Federal Government

Join the UNC Area Studies Centers on March 9 at 7:00 p.m. as they jointly sponsor a conversation on women in federal careers. Women have long been underrepresented in key sectors of the United States federal government, and especially in positions of leadership in the US federal government. This is particularly true for women of color.

This panel highlights women who have held or currently hold positions of leadership working for our country. They will talk about their careers, provide advice to others looking to enter US government service, consider the challenges specific to women in government leadership, and also discuss the strengths that women have brought to federal careers and the benefits that await them.

The panelists are a distinguished and diverse group of leaders. Julie J. Chung is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the US Department of State, and she is a leading voice for Asian American women and immigrants representing the U.S. Brenda Brown Schoonover is the former U.S. ambassador to Togo, a career foreign service officer and an alumna of the Peace Corps. Schoonover was among an early generation of Black women in the US Department of State. Sandy Wilson, a Hillsborough, N.C. native and a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna, was formerly at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and before that with the U.S. Air Force. Wilson was a pathbreaker for Black women in her field. Colonel Meg Martin is a professor and Head of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy and earned her doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2014.  

The panel will be moderated by Erinn Whitaker, a former senior analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and US State Department who now teaches in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Peace, War, and Defense program. Register for this panel here.