The Foreign Service Journal, September 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2019 59 AFSA NEWS KR I ST I N MI CHEL LE ROBERTS STATE REPRESENTATIVE Kristin Roberts is currently director of policy in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Before that, she was in the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs as a desk officer, where her portfolio included Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, NATO and the European Union. Ms. Roberts joined the Foreign Service in 2005. She served as press attaché at Embassy Tbilisi and, prior to that, oversaw the Public Affairs Office at Embassy Bishkek. In Washington, D.C., she has served as the special assistant to the assistant secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and did a tour in the State Depart- ment Operations Center. She was deputy spokesperson for Embassy New Delhi and has also served overseas at Embassy Islamabad and at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. Ms. Roberts earned a bachelor’s degree in social work and a law degree from the University of Washington. She is mar- ried to fellow FSO James Morris. They have two sons. L I L L I AN WAHL-TUCO STATE REPRESENTATIVE Lillian Wahl-Tuco joined State in 2006 as a consular-coned Foreign Service officer. She currently serves as a Pearson Fellow on the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- tee’s minority staff. During a Washington tour in 2011, Ms. Wahl-Tuco’s passion for work-life issues motivated her to launch Balancing Act with several other Foreign Service and Civil Service colleagues to help the department modernize all its work-life poli- cies—including in areas such as flexible work arrangements, telework, parental leave, childcare and eldercare. Ms. Wahl-Tuco was an AFSA Governing Board member from 2012 to 2014. During that time, she successfully helped secure programs such as the voluntary leave bank, backup care and job share reform, among other things. Ms. Wahl-Tuco wants to help AFSA efforts on diversity and gender issues and continue to be an advocate for work-life reforms. She is part of an FS-CS tandem and has two children. She joined the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Office of Public Diplomacy in August, where she covers Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. HOL LY K I RK I NG LOOMI S STATE REPRESENTATIVE Holly Kirking Loomis is acting director of the State Department Office of Global Change, where she leads the 35-person team that coordinates and implements U.S. foreign policy, negotiations strategy and programs related to climate change. She previously served in Brasilia, Tegucigalpa and Beijing (twice). She speaks Portuguese, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. In the summer of 2019, she served a temporary assignment as acting deputy chief of mission in Majuro, Marshall Islands. Ms. Kirking Loomis joined the Foreign Service as an eco- nomic officer in 2004. She earned her master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She served as treasurer and development chair on the board of directors of the American School in Brasilia. She also recently joined the board of directors of the Green Climate Fund as the alternate U.S. representative. Before joining the Foreign Service, she worked in trade finance in Chicago. Ms. Kirking Loomis and her husband, Landon Loomis, have three young sons, who call Wisconsin and New Orleans their home. TAMI R WASER STATE REPRESENTATIVE Tamir Waser is deputy director for the Office of European Security and Political- Military Affairs at the State Department. He served overseas most recently as politi- cal counselor at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels, as principal deputy high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as political counselor at Embassy Sara- jevo. Mr. Waser has also served in Riga, Freetown, Canberra and Bogotá. In Washington, he has served on the staff of the under secretary for political affairs, in the Balkans office working on Kosovo, and in the Office of European Security and Political-Military Affairs handling NATO’s operations in the Balkans. A native of California, Mr. Waser has bachelor’s and mas- ter’s degrees from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from the National War College. He is a baseball fan and enjoys history.