Senior diplomat Judith Ravin on Sunday took charge as the Consul General of the US in Chennai, succeeding Robert Burgess.
The US consulate in Chennai covers the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.
Ravin will be succeeding Robert Burgess as the consul general in Chennai. Before assuming charge as the consul General, Ravin as the Public Affairs Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru.
Prior to that, she worked in Washington as the International Relations Officer General in the Office of the Haiti Special Coordinator. Other diplomatic posts she has held include Islamabad, Pakistan; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Khartoum, Sudan; Yaoundé, Cameroon; and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She completed her undergraduate work at universities in France and Spain in addition to the United States and did her master’s degree in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University.
Before joining the U.S. Department of State in 2003, Ravin worked for several years in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as an editor, translator, and journalist. She is a co-author of Beyond Our Degrees of Separation: Washington Monsoons and Islamabad Blues (2017) and the author of Ballet in the Cane Fields: Vignettes from a Dominican Wanderlogue (2014). She is also fluent in Spanish and French.
The US Consulate posted a video of Ravin
“It is my great privilege to represent the United States in South India, especially at this historically difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Consul General Ravin.
“I look forward to advancing the shared goals of the United States and India in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and the three Union Territories of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry,” she said in a statement.
