Alexander M. Laskaris
Alexander Mark Laskaris (born 1967) is an American diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to Guinea from 2012 to 2015 and is the current nominee to serve as the next US Ambassador to Chad. Laskaris is the faculty leader in the National War College at the National Defense University. Early life and education. Laskaris was born in Monterey, California in 1967. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international politics from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Master of Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College. Career . Before joining the Foreign Service, Laskaris was an English and math teacher at St. Boniface High School in Galeshewe, Northern Cape in South Africa. Laskaris joined the United States Foreign Service in 1991 and was first posted to Monrovia, Liberia as vice-consul, during the ongoing civil war. In 1993, Laskaris was posted to Gaborone, Botswana as political and economic officer, staying there for two years before serving as desk officer for Rwanda and Burundi. In 1997, Laskaris was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Luanda, Angola to serve as a political counselor. In 1999, Laskaris was recalled to work  at the United States Department of State, first as an advisor on the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, working under Richard Holbrooke, and then, in 2001, as part of Secretary of State Colin Powell's Policy Planning Staff. Laskaris returned to Africa in 2003 to be deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi and in 2006, took up the same post in Pristina, Kosovo, serving there during the international talks led by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari. In 2008, Laskaris was appointed team leader for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq. From the summer of 2009  until his next appointment in 2010, Laskaris took a course in Kurdish. In 2010 he was given the job of consul general in the consulate in Erbil, Iraq. Laskaris stayed in Iraq until his nomination for the U.S. ambassador to Guinea by President Barack Obama on May 24, 2012. He was appointed to the post on August 3, 2012, presented his credentials in September 2012 and left the post on November 10, 2015. In January 2016, Laskaris joined the United States Africa Command as deputy to Commander Thomas D. Waldhauser. In July 2019, he began leading seminars at the National  War College as a faculty member. In January 2022, Laskaris was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as United States ambassador to Chad. Personal life. Laskaris speaks French, Albanian, Greek, Spanish, Kurdish, Soussou and Portuguese.