Beth A. Payne will assume leadership of the State Department’s Resilience Project in October 2016. She has served as the Associate Dean for the State Department’s National Foreign Affairs Training Center’s School of Professional and Area Studies since August 2014. She is a career Foreign Service officer who joined the U.S. State Department in 1993. Her previous assignments include postings at the U.S. Embassies in Senegal, Rwanda, Israel and Kuwait and as the U.S. Consul General in Kolkata, India. In 2003, she opened the Office of the U.S. Consul in Baghdad, Iraq, where she received the State Department’s award for heroism for saving the arm of a fellow Foreign Service professional. Beth received a M.S. in National Security Studies from the National War College in 2008. She enjoys photography, hiking, cooking and traveling.