Brenda Brown Schoonover

Brenda Schoonover is a retired career Foreign Service Officer. In 1997 she was nominated as the United States Ambassador to Togo, where she served for three years. Her last overseas assignment before retiring to Chapel Hill in 2004 was Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, Belgium. There, she was Charge d’Affaires ad Interim for a considerable part of her three- year tour. Prior to Brussels, Schoonover was Diplomat-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Other assignments include an earlier tour in Belgium in the mid 1990s, preceded by tours in Washington, D.C., Tunisia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. She also lived in Nigeria with her late husband, Dick Schoonover, and in Tanzania as a member of the Peace Corps staff. 

Schoonover is a graduate of the State Department’s Senior Seminar Program (39^th class, 1996–97) and the National Defense University’s Capstone Program, designed for U.S. military flag officers and a select few civilians of equivalent rank. She is the recipient of several achievement awards including the U.S. Presidential Meritorious Service Award in 2003 and the Order of the Mono by the Government of Togo.

A native of Maryland and a graduate of Morgan State University in Baltimore, she joined the Peace Corps (Philippines, Group I) at its inception and is considered a charter member of the organization.

Schoonover is currently President of the Board of Directors of the on-line publication: “American Diplomacy”. Her other advisory board affiliations include Global Education at UNC (ex-officio); Carolina for Kibera; Carolina Friends of the Foreign Service and the International Affairs Council.