Biography

Phyllis M. Powers is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Minister-Counselor. Ms. Powers is U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Panama. Her previous assignment was as the Director of the Office of Provincial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

Prior to Iraq, Ms. Powers was Deputy Chief of Mission of the U. S. Embassy in Lima, Peru from 2005 until June 2007. Until 2005, Ms. Powers served in Colombia as the Director of the Narcotics Affairs Section responsible for the Counter-Narcotics program known as Plan Colombia. She also served as the Management Counselor for the Embassy in Colombia. In Washington, D.C., Ms. Powers served as Senior Post Management Officer for the Bureau of Near East Asia and South Asia, with oversight responsibility for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf countries and as Deputy Director of the Office of Travel Support in the Bureau of Administration. Ms. Powers's career also includes tours in Jordan, Russia, and Poland.

A native of Utica, New York, Ms. Powers graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelors degree in biology and is certified by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists as a Medical Technologist. Prior to entering the Foreign Service in 1978, Ms. Powers was a Medical Technologist at Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia.