Andy Schapiro | |
---|---|
United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic | |
In office September 30, 2014 – January 20, 2017 |
|
President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Norman Eisen |
Succeeded by | Vacant |
Personal details | |
Born |
Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
April 25, 1963
Alma mater |
Homewood-Flossmoor High School Yale University University of Oxford Harvard University |
Andrew H. Schapiro (born April 25, 1963) is an American attorney and diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic from September 30, 2014 to January 20, 2017. He was nominated by President Barack Obama March 6, 2014 and confirmed by the Senate in July 2014. He was sworn in on August 14, 2014 and presented his credentials to President Miloš Zeman on September 30, 2014.
Schapiro grew up in the Chicago metropolitan area, the son of Raya Czerner Schapiro and Joseph Schapiro. His mother, a Czech immigrant who was born in Prague, was a psychiatrist and Holocaust refugee. His father was a pediatrician.
Schapiro graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 1981. He attended Yale University, graduating with a B.A. in history, magna cum laude, in 1985. Schapiro then attended the University of Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship, earning an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, with first-class honours, in 1987. He then entered Harvard Law School, where he served on the Law Review with Barack Obama. Schapiro was awarded a J.D. degree in 1990.
Schapiro served as a law clerk for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, and then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, in Washington, DC. Schapiro is credited with helping to shape Blackmun’s eventual position as a death penalty “abolitionist.” Schapiro wrote to the justice, "Efforts to fine-tune the machinery of death cannot succeed".