When social sciences alumni graduate from UCI, they go on to careers as successful lawyers, teachers, professors, business leaders and other professions that take them to all corners of the globe. For Geoffrey Pyatt, political science ’85, that journey has led him overseas to Europe where he’s currently serving as the eighth U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine. Prior to his post in Kiev, Pyatt was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the South and Central Asia Affairs Bureau, leading the State Department’s newest geographic bureau and helping to manage U.S. relations in a region that stretches from Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean. From August 2007 until May 2010, he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, representing the United States to the International Atomic Energy Agency and other UN technical agencies. From 2002-07, Pyatt served at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, first as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs and beginning in June 2006 as Deputy Chief of Mission. As DCM he served as chief operating officer for one of the United States' largest and fastest growing foreign missions. Prior to his India assignment, he served at the American Consulate General in Hong Kong, managing the trade and export control dialogue with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. From 1997-99 he was Principal Officer of the American Consulate in Lahore - representing the United States in Pakistan's largest and politically most important province. His Washington assignments included Director for Latin America on the National Security Council staff (1996-97), Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State (1995-96) and Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America (1994). He was Political Officer in New Delhi, India from 1992-94 and Economic Officer and Vice-Consul in Tegucigalpa, Honduras from 1990-92.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked with The Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank that brings together leading citizens of the Americas.

Pyatt grew up in La Jolla, California and holds a master's degree in international relations from Yale, in addition to his UCI B.A.

-courtesy of the U.S. State Department