The Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship is named in honor of one of the most distinguished and capable American diplomats of the latter half of the 20th century.

Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering is Senior Counselor at ASG, where he draws on expertise honed during a distinguished career as a U.S. diplomat to help clients pursue growth and investment strategies around the world.

Ambassador Pickering served as U.S. Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations under President George H.W. Bush, as well as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under President Bill Clinton. He holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. In a diplomatic career spanning five decades, he was also U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Ambassador Pickering is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is active on a number of non-profit boards, including of the International Crisis Group, where he was previously Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Board. He is the current Chairman of the Boards of the American Academy of Diplomacy, the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, and the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. He has been a Trustee at the Council on Foreign Relations (where he is currently a member) and the Aspen Institute, and is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

Ambassador Pickering received an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, an M.A. from the University of Melbourne, and a B.A. from Bowdoin College. He has received honorary degrees from Bowdoin College and 14 other universities. He received the Distinguished Presidential Award and the Department of State’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Award. He speaks French, Spanish, and Swahili and has some fluency in Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian. He is based in Washington, D.C.

As the lead U.S. foreign affairs agency, the U.S. Department of State represents the United States at more than 270 diplomatic locations around the world, including embassies, consulates, and missions to international organizations. 

The U.S. Department of State is the lead institution for the conduct of American diplomacy and the Secretary of State is the President’s principal foreign policy advisor.  The Department’s Foreign Service is a corps of some 13,000 employees dedicated to representing America abroad and responding to the needs of American citizens living and traveling around the world.  There are also more than 45,000 locally employed Foreign Service staff at overseas posts.  Today, the primary responsibility of the U.S. Department of State and its employees is to fight terrorism, protect U.S. interests abroad, and implement foreign policy initiatives while building a more free, prosperous and secure world.

If you are passionate about public service and want to represent the U.S. around the world, a challenging and rewarding career is waiting for you.  The opportunity to work and experience cultures, customs and people of different nations is truly a career unlike any other.

Explore a career in the Foreign Service and start your journey with the Department of State today. Start by looking at where we work, or taking the quiz to find out if the Foreign Service is right for you, or what career track is the best fit.

Learn more by visiting the U.S. Department of State’s website at www.careers.state.gov

The Pickering Program is a State Department Program administered from the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University.  The Center was established in 1993 to serve as a focal point for the University’s many and varied international activities and interests.  The Center was built with substantial financial support by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which made the Center one of only 10 Kellogg-supported Centers of Excellence in the United States. In 1996, with United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and members of the Bunche family in attendance, the Center, was re-christened The Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center. Ralph J. Bunche was an American political scientist, academic, and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel. He was the first African American to be so honored in the history of the prize.

The mission of the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center is to make available–and to ensure the Center’s long-term capacity to make available–to Howard University students, faculty and senior administrators, as well as certain constituencies beyond the University, valuable international affairs support, services, information, and opportunities.

The Bunche Center serves as:

• The point of contact for a range of inquiries from entities outside the University: foreign embassies, foreign and U.S. government agencies, universities, corporations, and private individuals.
• The site for conferences and meetings exploring different aspects of international affairs, including one of the founding gatherings of the White House Initiative on South Africa.
• The home of the Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Program, which honors one of the University’s most notable graduates with a celebrated annual lecture, internships, and distinguished visitors.
• A resource devoted to mentoring Howard University students interested in international affairs, including serving as the home of Howard University’s Study Abroad Program and the U.S. Department of State Diplomat in Residence.
• The home of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship, Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Program and the Donald M. Payne International Development Program, initiatives that promote the involvement of young people in careers in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development.