Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Lessons from the Edge, will deliver the Wilkes University Max Rosenn Lecture in Law and Humanities at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts.
Marie Yovanovitch served three times as U.S. Ambassador, most recently in Kyiv as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. She previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic from 2005-08 and the Republic of Armenia from 2008-11. Yovanovitch retired from the Foreign Service in 2020 and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
Born into a family that survived both Soviet and Nazi terror before emigrating to the U.S., Yovanovitch rose to the top of her profession in the crucible of the former USSR. Following early assignments in Moscow, London, Ottawa and Mogadishu, she served as Deputy Director of the Russia Desk and then, as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, she was named Deputy Chief in Ukraine.
Within the Department of State, Yovanovitch worked on the Russia desk, the Office of European Security Affairs and the Operations Center. She also served as the Dean of the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, and as the Deputy Commandant and International Advisor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University.
The Rosenn Lecture is free and open to the public, though registration is required. For more information and online registration, visit wilkes.edu/rosenn.
About the Rosenn Lecture
The Max Rosenn Lecture in Law and Humanities was established at Wilkes University in 1980 in recognition of Judge Rosenn’s exceptional contributions to public service. It was established by his former law clerks, his law firm, Rosenn, Jenkins & Greenwald, family and friends. Past speakers include Jill Lepore, Jon Meacham, Terry Gross, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bryan Stevenson, Anna Deavere Smith, Cory Booker and Bob Woodward.
