Mignon Turner Houston – Diplomat in Residence
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Contact

Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, DM 491-A
Tel: 305-348-6381 | DIRSouthFlorida@state.gov

Mignon Turner Houston has served as a U.S. Diplomat for 15 years. In this capacity, she promoted U.S. foreign policy and partnerships in the U.S. Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa; the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines; the U.S. Embassy in Yaoundé, Cameroon; and the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico. She also served in Washington, DC, working as the Press Officer and Speechwriter for the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan and as the Western Hemisphere’s Public Diplomacy Desk Officer covering 21 Caribbean countries. Based on her Spanish and French language abilities, she was selected to serve as the Acting American Citizens Services Chief in Madrid, Spain on a temporary duty assignment in 2013 and to lead the Press Team for the multi-national African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) 2015 Summit in Libreville, Gabon.

She received her undergraduate degree from Winston-Salem State University in 2004 as a double major in Spanish and Mass Communications and her Master’s degree in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware in 2006. She grew up in a small town in Burlington, North Carolina, and is married to Dr. John Allen Houston. They are preparing for a son in June 2021.

Rebecca Kimbrell – Diplomat in Residence
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Contact

Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, DM 491-A
Tel: 305-348-6381 | DIRSouthFlorida@state.gov

Rebecca Kimbrell is a political-coned officer who most recently served as U.S. consul to Lyon, France from 2016 - 2018. Prior to this, she was deputy director in the Office of Caucasus Affairs and Regional Conflicts in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. Rebecca also served as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and as a senior watch officer in the Secretary of State's Operations Center.

Rebecca's overseas assignments included tours as a political officer in Kyiv, and as an economic officer in Ankara. She began her career in Kingston, Jamaica. Before joining the State Department, Rebecca served as the executive director of the Nashville, Tennessee Sports Authority, the agency responsible for financing and overseeing the city's NFL stadium and NHL arena.

Rebecca earned an M.A. in international relations from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. in political science from David Lipscomb University. Hailing from the South (born in Birmingham, but settling in Nashville), she is an avid football fan and cook. Rebecca is married to a Diplomatic Security special agent. She has studied French, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Monique Quesada – Diplomat in Residence
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Contact

Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, GL-474
Tel: 305-348-6381 | DIRSouthFlorida@state.gov

Monique Quesada is the Diplomat in Residence (DIR) at Florida International University and Miami Dade College. She covers the Florida educational district that spans from Daytona Beach to Key West as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. As the FIR, she engages with the University and High School students on raising awareness about career opportunities in the Foreign Service and Civil Service with the U.S. Department of State.

Monique Quesada is a career Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State. Previously the U.S. Embassy's Cultural Attache in London (since 2011), Monique spent a year working as the Deputy U.S. Senior Civilian Representative for Western Afghanistan, and concurrently head of the Political and Economic Section for the new American Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan.

Since 1988, Monique has split her career between Political Affairs and Public Diplomacy assignments, serving months in Western Europe and North Africa. She speaks the following languages with varying degrees of fluency: French, Italian, Spanish, Dari, Arabic, Modern Greek and Portuguese. Monique's family background personifies American "diversity". Her father came to the U.S. as a student from the Philippines; her mother emigrated from the Netherlands; and Monique was born in Venezuela. She gained U.S. citizenship when she was eight years old in Houston, Texas, grew up in Columbus, Ohio but now considers herself a resident of the great state of Florida.

Catherine Rodriguez – Diplomat in Residence
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Contact

Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, GL-474
Tel: 305-348-6381 or 202-674-3317 | DIRSouthFlorida@state.gov

Catherine Rodriguez is the Diplomat in Residence (DIR) at Florida International University and Miami Dade College. She covers the Florida educational district that spans from Daytona Beach to Key West as well as Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. As the DIR, she engages with University and High School students on raising awareness about careers opportunities in the Foreign Service and Civil Service with the U.S. Department of State. Catherine has served multiple tours of duty in South Asia including assignments in Pakistan and India. She also served as the Regional Director of the Office of Foreign Mission where she was responsible for liaison and administrative support for the 3000 foreign diplomats stationed in nine states and two territories in the Southeastern United States. Catherine was a Colin Powell Fellow and a recipient of the prestigious Una Chapman Cox sabbatical where she obtained a Masters in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University.

Catherine attended Florida International University where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a Masters degree in Business Administration and a Masters in Accounting. She is a certified public accountant who began her professional career with the United States Agency of International Development where she served as an auditor for the Inspector General’s Office. In that capacity, she served tours of duty in Washington DC, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

She is married to Nace Crawford, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer. Her hobbies include travel, the arts, and reading. She is fluent in Spanish.

Edward Loo, Diplomat in Residence
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Contact

Office: Modesto A. Maidique Campus, GL-474
Tel: 305-348-6381 | eloo@fiu.edu

Ed Loo arrived in San Francisco as an infant in the arms of his parents on a steamship from Hong Kong. Today, he is a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Counselor.

In his career of over 25 years, he has served extensively in Latin America, East Asia, and Europe. One unifying thread in his assignments has been that they have been in countries undergoing significant transformation. As a press attaché in Beijing he arrived in 1989 right after the tragedy of Tiananmen Square, working from the same Embassy compound where the U.S. sheltered dissident astrophysicist Fang Lizhi from Chinese security agents for more than a year. In Manila, he ran a newsroom operation from the Embassy to put the spotlight on U.S. assistance in the aftermath of the devastating Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruptions and to help redefine our bilateral relationship after the closing of the U.S. bases in the Philippines. Returning to Beijing in 1994 as American Center Director, he opened the first foreign government center to encourage visits and contacts by ordinary Chinese citizens, often times against the wishes of local authorities.

As Public Affairs Counselor in Managua, Ed developed the messaging strategy for the U.S. Government's massive assistance program to help Nicaragua recover from the ravages of Hurricane Mitch. He served as Cultural Attaché in Madrid where, among other achievements, he launched an annual seminar on countering terrorism sponsored by the U.S. and Spanish governments, a topic tragically brought close to home with the Madrid train station bombings of March 2004. In Bogotá, Ed was acting Public Affairs Counselor and then Cultural Attaché at our second largest Embassy with its priorities of working with Colombia to combat narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Before he left Colombia in 2008, he was privileged to witness the dramatic rescue of three American citizens held hostage in the jungle by the FARC for more than five years. Ed has just ended his assignment as Public Affairs Counselor in Budapest, Hungary, a nation that is undergoing profound political changes that the U.S. is watching closely.

It is second nature for Ed, as a public diplomacy officer, to reach out to individuals from diverse communities, especially from disadvantaged and marginalized populations, whether they be activists and dissidents in China, Muslims in Spain, Latin Americans of African descent, or ethnic Roma in Hungary. He is especially proud of his instrumental role in the creation of the Muslim outreach program in Madrid, special Fulbright scholarships for Afro-Colombians to study in the U.S., and a professional development program for Roma university students at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.

Ed speaks fluent Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, and has studied Hungarian, French, and Filipino. In addition to the postings mentioned previously, he also served twice in Taiwan and in Washington. He graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College with degrees in history and English, and has a master's degree from Columbia University in American History. He is still proud to call San Francisco his home.