Demitra Pappas joined the Commission staff as Senior Advisor for the Department of State in September 2022.  She has been a Foreign Service Officer for 23 years, serving most recently as the Counselor for Arms Control at the U.S. Mission to the OSCE and Chief Delegate to the Forum for Security Cooperation from 2019-2022, where she focused on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Previously, she was assigned to U.S. Mission Russia from 2016-2018, where she was Deputy Principal Officer in St. Petersburg, and following the forced closure of the Consulate, served in the Political Section at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.  She also served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State from 2013-2014, covering European affairs, during Ukraine 2014 crisis, and International Security.

Her other overseas assignments include Geneva at the Conference on Disarmament; the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, focusing on IAEA/Iran; at the Consulate General in Thessaloniki as Consul General; at the U.S. Embassy Paris as Assistant to the Ambassador; and in Havana as Acting Public Affairs Counselor.  Domestic assignments also included as Deputy Director in the International Security and Nonproliferation bureau’s press office, and in UN Political Affairs working on Security Council Issues. 

Ms. Pappas joined the Foreign Service in December 1998.  Prior to that, she worked as a Senior Legislative Aide in the U.S. Congress and as a lecturer at Princeton University.  She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale University with a B.A./M.A. and an M.Phil. from Princeton University and holds a Masters in National Security Affairs from the Naval War College.