Avis Bohlen served for 25 years as a career foreign service
officer with the U.S. State Department and worked for 30 years for the federal
government, retiring from the State Department in May 2002. She has served as
assistant secretary for arms control (1999-2002); ambassador to Bulgaria
(1996-1999); and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Paris
(1991-1995).
Prior to that, Bohlen worked on numerous assignments in the
State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs. She was deputy assistant secretary
for Europe in charge of security issues and served on the secretary’s policy
planning staff.
Over the years, she has been involved in policy on a wide
range of issues relating to U.S.-European relations, U.S relations with France,
European security issues, arms control and Soviet affairs. Before joining the
Foreign Service in 1979, Bohlen worked for the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency.
From September 2002 to May 2003, Bohlen was a public policy
scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. She
is a member of the Defense Advisory Committee at the Center for Naval Analysis
and currently serves as chairman of the Board of IREX (International Research
and Exchanges). She is also on the boards of the Atlantic Council of the United
States, the American Academy of Diplomacy, the American College of Sofia and
the Arms Control Association.
Bohlen earned her M.A. from Columbia University (1965) and
B.A. from Radcliffe College (1961).