Bisa Williams

Bisa Williams is the current Ambassador from the United States of America to the Republic of Niger in Niamey. She assumed the post on October 29, 2010.

Early life
Bisa Williams was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and Trenton, New Jersey. She received as Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College, where she graduated in 1976 cum laude with honors distinctions in Black Literature of the Americas. She later received a Master of Arts degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and a second MA from the University of California, Los Angeles in comparative literature.

Career
Bisa Williams is a career foreign service officer, having joined the Foreign Service in 1984. Her previous overseas postings include Port Louis, Mauritius; Paris, France and Panama City, Panama. Her first overseas assignment was in Port Louis, Mauritius, a mission that also covers Seychelles and Comoros, where she served as Deputy Chief of Mission under Ambassador John Price. She oversaw the African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum to improve trade relations between the United States and Africa.

Prior to being assigned to Niamey, Bisa Williams, then U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, participated in a September 2009 six-day trip to Cuba in an attempt to improve bilateral relations. During the trip she met with Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodríguez Barrera, worked on restoring direct mail service between the two countries, and toured parts of western Cuba hit by Hurricane Ike. She also invited dissidents to a reception at the United States Interests Section in Havana.

Her nomination to be United States Ambassador to Niger was sent to the United States Senate on November 30, 2009, and she assumed the post in Niamey eleven months later, on October 29, 2010.