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Name: Whiteside, Ruth
Current Position: Previous Director
A native of Texas, Ruth A. Whiteside has served since February 2006 as the director of the Foreign Service Institute. She received her BA in History from Austin College, an MA from the University of Texas in International Relations and a PhD from Rice University. Whiteside served in the Foreign Service from 1978 to 1984.
Whiteside’s assignments included service in Spain, as well as on the policy planning staff, the Bureau of European Affairs, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and as executive assistant to the State Department’s Under Secretary of State for Management. She then served as the assistant director of the Southwest Center for Urban Research and the Institute for Urban Studies at the University of Houston.
From 1997-2001 she was the deputy director of the Foreign Service Institute, followed by her assignment as the principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of the Director General, Bureau of Human Resources from 2001-2006.
