Profile | Heera Kamboj, Foreign Service Officer and ISD Rusk Fellow
Chasing “white whales” and “unicorn jobs”
Over the past month, we have been profiling each of our incoming fellows in The Diplomatic Pouch.
For the second interview, ISD research assistant Jonas Heering sat down with one of our mid-career Rusk Fellows, Heera Kamboj.
Jonas: Tell us about your path to the Foreign Service. What led you to become a diplomat?
Heera: I had always wanted to serve our country. My grandfather came to the United States in the 1950s to study in Wyoming. After his studies he returned to Punjab. Fast forward 15 years, and he immigrated with his family to the United States for a better future. His adopted home treated him and all of us so well that I felt like it was our time to give back. I also had this strong sense of being very American and patriotic — and I also thought: “What other country allows you to be a practicing religious minority and feel patriotic at the same time?” Having a father who repeatedly told me we lived in the greatest country in the world, and the Sikh concept of Seva — selfless service — really affected me at a deep level.
I contemplated joining the military, but given that I am a Sikh and that I had long hair, I did not think that it would be possible at the time. The funny story is that I told my seventh grade social studies teacher that I want to serve our country and that I wanted to use my language skills in my future career. She said, “Well, have you ever heard of the Foreign Service?” And I went away from that thinking about the Foreign Legion — so I lost a few years there.
I went to George Washington University thinking that I would study to become a foreign correspondent. Part of my motivation was to raise the positive profile of Sikh Americans, and this felt even more pressing after 9/11. Interestingly enough, most of my professors in the international media and communications concentration were former United States Information Agency officers, or public diplomacy (PD) officers. So, I ended up coming across the Thomas R. Pickering fellowship during my sophomore year in college and decided to apply. And the rest is kind of history. In many respects, as a PD officer, I am doing the flip side of what I would have done as a foreign correspondent and I am happy with that path.
Jonas: Where has your diplomatic career taken you so far, and what have been your most rewarding and challenging assignments?
Heera: I’ve had a really interesting career. I interned in the Public Affairs Section in Cairo, Egypt. I served in Mexico City as a vice consul, in the political section in Kabul, Afghanistan, and as the spokesperson at the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, India. More recently, I served as the public affairs officer in the Iran Regional Presence Office in Dubai. Before coming to Georgetown, I worked in the Office of Central American Affairs at the Department of State.
Surprisingly, the jobs that I thought I would enjoy the most were the ones that turned out to be OK, while the assignments that were initially not among my top choices turned out to be the best jobs I’ve ever had. The best assignment thus far was as the political officer covering human rights, women’s rights, and religious freedom in Afghanistan. While I was there, I chaired the UN Women Working Group on Women, Peace, and Security, and we got to really advocate for Afghan women’s and Afghan civil society’s inclusion in donor conferences and other events. In Afghanistan, I was also able to fulfill my dream of learning Persian. I think meeting with minorities in Afghanistan was a true honor, and I had a lot of empathy for the Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Hazara, and Christians, and admired the Afghan human rights activists trying to defend those groups.
I think, in retrospect, I realize I’ve had a lot of “unicorn jobs” which are just not the typical State Department positions. Those jobs really let you be creative and do some unique things.
Jonas: What motivated you to apply for the Rusk fellowship?
Heera: So I had a “white whale.” I’ve had a few white whales in my career, or goals I wanted to conquer. I was in my freshman year of college when 9/11 happened. And like everyone else, I really wanted to help do my part and contribute to making sure it would never happen again. So by serving in Afghanistan, I feel like I was able to respond to one of my career aspirations.
A second dream of mine was to work on Iran issues and figure out how we could improve relations between the people of Iran and the people of the United States, even when the governments do not have formal relations. I wanted to do that since I wrote a thesis on the same subject at the Harvard Kennedy School. I was really lucky and I really enjoyed helping to organize sports exchanges between Iran and the United States.
So after having checked those boxes off, I thought to myself, “What is it that I want to do for the second part of my career?,” and I really became interested in disinformation and sharp power after completing the Penn Kemble fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy. I felt that the Rusk fellowship would help educate me and prepare me to contribute on this topic. Many Foreign Service Officers (FSO) aspire to work in academia, and this opportunity really allows me to experience that for a year.
Jonas: What kind of projects will you be working on at ISD and what are you looking forward to most about the fellowship?
Heera: I am really excited about taking a solution-oriented approach to disinformation. The literature on disinformation that has emerged over the last two years is fantastic. I really want to work with the students in my class on disinformation, which I will be teaching next term, to brainstorm some feasible solutions that involve the government, the nonprofit sector, and the private sector. I also hope to learn a lot more about artificial intelligence and international governance. There’s a lot of intersection between these issues, and I think it will help me serve this country better when I return to the Department.
Jonas: What are your next steps in your FSO career after ISD?
Heera: Great question! Ask me in about two months. We usually “bid” in the fall and find out about our next assignment in November. I am really interested in taking what I learned here at Georgetown and bringing it back to the State Department — either as a course at the Foreign Service Institute, or by working in the Under Secretary’s Office for Public Diplomacy, in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, in the new Bureau of Global Public Affairs, or in a regional public diplomacy office. I am not sure, but hopefully another unicorn job.
Read the profile of our other Rusk Fellow, Hammad B. Hammad:
Learn more about all of our new fellows in our recent Despatches newsletter:
