Patricia Newton Moller

Patricia Newton Moller

Patricia Newton Moller is a career diplomat currently serving as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. of the Embassy of the United States of America to Morocco. Prior to this appointment, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Burundi.

Following ten years in investment banking, Ambassador Moller joined the Department of State in 1987 as a Foreign Service officer.  In the course of her 25-year career she has served in five other overseas locations including in Munich, Germany, Chennai, India, Belgrade, Serbia, Yerevan, Armenia, and Tbilisi, Georgia.  In Washington from 1991 – 1996, she served first as a watch officer, then as staff aide to the Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, and later as Vietnam desk officer during the exciting days of bilateral negotiations to reestablish diplomatic ties between the two countries.  Assigned to Belgrade from 1996 to 1999, worsening political crisis forced the Embassy to evacuate family members and some employees three times.  On the morning of April 24, 1999, she, along with the Chief of Mission and other remaining Embassy officials, boarded a U.S. Navy jet to depart from Serbia.  NATO bombing of the country began that night.  From 2000 to 2002, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Yerevan, Armenia and from 2002 – 2005 as Deputy Chief of Mission in Tbilisi, Georgia.  In 2006 – 2009, she was Ambassador to the Republic of Burundi.  In 2009, she was nominated as Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea, to where she served until 2012.

Ambassador Moller has four times received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and five times been granted a Senior Foreign Service Performance Award.  She is the recipient of two of the U.S. Secretary of State’s most prestigious awards.  In 2000, she received the Leamon R. Hunt Award for Management Excellence for her direction in operations of Embassy Belgrade through its final closure on the eve of the 1999 NATO bombings.  In 2011, she was granted the Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award for her central role in preventing the widespread loss of human life and promoting democracy and human rights throughout Guinea’s first ever democratic transition.  In August of 2012, Ambassador Moller was invested into the Republic of Guinea’s National Patriotic Legion of Honor with the rank of Commander.  She holds the distinct career honor of having received the Presidential Meritorious Service Award.

Ambassador Moller is married to retired Foreign Service Officer Gilbert Sperling.