Samantha Power

Samantha Power
19th Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development
Incumbent
Assumed office
May 3, 2021
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byMark Green
28th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
In office
August 5, 2013 – January 20, 2017
PresidentBarack Obama
DeputyRosemary DiCarlo
Michele J. Sison
Preceded bySusan Rice
Succeeded byNikki Haley
Personal details
Born
Samantha Jane Power

(1970-09-21) September 21, 1970 (age 54)
London, United Kingdom
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
​
(m. 2008)​
Children2
EducationYale University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)

Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an Irish-American journalist, diplomat, and government official who is currently serving as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. She previously served as the 28th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017.[1] Power is a member of the Democratic Party.

Power began her career as a war correspondent covering the Yugoslav Wars before entering academic administration. In 1998, she became the Founding Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, where she later served as the first Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy until 2009. She was a senior adviser to Senator Barack Obama until March 2008.

Power joined the Obama State Department transition team in late November 2008. She served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Council from January 2009 to February 2013.[2] In April 2012, Obama chose her to chair a newly formed Atrocities Prevention Board. As United Nations ambassador, Power's office focused on such issues as United Nations reform, women's rights and LGBT rights, religious freedom and religious minorities, refugees, human trafficking, human rights, and democracy, including in the Middle East and North Africa, Sudan, and Myanmar. A longtime advocate of armed intervention by the United States in opposition to atrocities abroad,[3] she is considered to have been a key figure in the Obama administration in persuading the president to intervene militarily in Libya.[4]

Power is a subject of the 2014 documentary Watchers of the Sky, which explains the contribution of several notable people, including Power, to the cause of genocide prevention. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, a study of the U.S. foreign policy response to genocide. She has also been awarded the 2015 Barnard Medal of Distinction[5] and the 2016 Henry A. Kissinger Prize.[6] In 2016, she was listed as the 41st-most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.[7]

In January 2021, Joe Biden nominated Power to head the United States Agency for International Development. Her nomination was confirmed by the US Senate on April 28, 2021, by a vote of 68–26.[8]

  1. ^ Munro, André (May 8, 2023). "Samantha Power". Britannica.com.
  2. ^ Abad-Santos, Alexander (June 4, 2013). "Samantha Power Has It All". The Wire. The Atlantic. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  3. ^ Whyte, Jessica (April 17, 2024). "A "Tragic Humanitarian Crisis": Israel's Weaponization of Starvation and the Question of Intent". Journal of Genocide Research: 1–15. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2339637.
  4. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (March 29, 2011). "Still Crusading, but Now on the Inside". The New York Times.
  5. ^ "Citation for Samantha Power". Barnard College. Barnard College. Retrieved December 13, 2016. In it, you shone a bold and discerning light on the atrocities of Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Darfur in hope that vows of "never again" would truly mean "never again," and that a regard for human consequences will, someday, matter most.
  6. ^ Jilani, Zaid (May 29, 2016). "Samantha Power to Receive Prize From Henry Kissinger, Whom She Once Harshly Criticized". The Intercept. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  7. ^ "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women". Forbes. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  8. ^ Chalfant, Morgan (January 13, 2021). "Biden nominates Samantha Power to lead USAID". The Hill.