Carey Cavanaugh
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Carey Cavanaugh (born 1955, Jacksonville, Florida) is a former U.S. Ambassador who now serves as Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. For twenty-two years, he served as a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State before joining the School in 2006, where he is also professor of diplomacy and conflict resolution.
Cavanaugh majored in Russian at the University of Florida and went on to graduate study in government and international affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Cavanaugh taught international affairs and Soviet and East European studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio before entering the Foreign Service. There he rose to the rank of Minister Counselor, with a career focused on conflict resolution, assistance, and humanitarian issues.
In 1991-92, he was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, working with Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. In 1992, he was sent to Tbilisi as Chargé d’Affaires, leading the team that established the U.S. embassy to the new Republic of Georgia. He was a fellow in MIT’s Seminar XXI in 1994-95.
Under the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace efforts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkey. He dealt with the issues of Nazi gold and Holocaust-era assets, while serving as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland, and was acting Special Cyprus Coordinator. In 2000, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Ambassador/Special Negotiator responsible for conflicts in Eurasia and to serve as Co-Chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group. This culminated in OSCE peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh with the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Key West, Florida.
He was president of the Department of State’s Senior Seminar in 2001-2002 and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council for Excellence in Government. In addition to Washington assignments in the State Department, Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, Ambassador Cavanaugh served in Berlin, Moscow, Rome, and Bern. Cavanaugh’s final official assignment was foreign policy/political advisor to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Mullen.
