Bernadette Meehan

Bernadette Meehan (born 1975) is an American diplomat and current spokesperson for the United States National Security Council.

Meehan was raised in Pleasantville, New York and graduated from Kennedy Catholic High School. She attended Boston College, graduating in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. After graduation she worked for seven years as a financial analyst on Wall Street, first as a Vice President at JPMorgan Chase and later as a Vice President at Lehman Brothers. Although she enjoyed her career in finance, she was always drawn to foreign affairs.

Meehan joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in 2004, and began her new career as a Consular Officer at the U.S. embassy in Bogota, Colombia. While assigned to Colombia, she survived a kidnapping by armed men in Bogota in 2006.

Meehan served in Colombia for two years before volunteering to serve in Iraq. She worked at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2006 to 2007, as a Consular Officer, and for several months as Special Assistant to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

In September 2007 Meehan left Iraq to study Arabic at the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute in Virginia to prepare for her next tour as the Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Her job in Dubai was three-fold: to explain U.S. foreign policy to the local population; to promote the culture of the United States; and to enable exchange programs between Americans and Emiratis, such as the Fulbright Program and International Visitor Leadership Program.

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