Elena Augustine

Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State

Elena Augustine has been a career member of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service specializing in political affairs since 2013. She currently serves as a Staff Assistant in the Bureau of European & Eurasian Affairs. Her previous assignments include Political, Economic, and Public Diplomacy Officer at U.S. Consulate Perth, Australia; two assignments in Washington in the East Asian & Pacific Affairs (EAP) Bureau’s Office of Regional and Security Policy focused on counterterrorism/nontraditional security issues and good governance and the rule of law, human rights, trafficking in persons, and gender across the EAP region; Economic Officer at U.S. Embassy Seoul, Republic of Korea; and Consular Officer at U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia. For her work in Seoul to successfully conclude the 2018 negotiations to amend the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement she won the American Foreign Service Association’s W. Averell Harriman Award for Constructive Dissent. She speaks English, German, Russian, and some Korean. Ms. Augustine earned an M.A. in international development from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and a B.A. from Bucknell University in political science, English, and theater. She is a returned Peace Corps Youth Development Volunteer (Kazakhstan 2009-11) and a 2019 Fellow of the International Career Advancement Program (ICAP) sponsored by the Aspen Institute and University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. She is committed to integrating gender equity into foreign policy, advancing opportunities for underrepresented groups in foreign affairs, and mentoring.