Ms. Karen Chaisson

Ms. Karen Chaisson has thirty-one years of international development experience, and has served as a Program Manager for several Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries. She also led the Georgia Border Security and Law Enforcement (GBSLE) Program for several years before it was phased out. She has spent the majority of her career administering the Export Control and Border Security (EXBS) program.

She has been a Foreign Affairs Officer at the Department of State (DOS) in the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau, Office of Export Control Cooperation (ISN/ECC) since September 2015.

Karen has spent the majority of the last year on detail to the Afghanistan task force, working first at Dulles Airport, then at Camp As-Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, and finally at the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) HQ in Rosslyn, VA. She worked in the special cases unit, and continues to sponsor an Afghan refugee family in her home in Woodbridge, VA. She ended that detail on July 15, 2022.

She came to DOS from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), where she was an International Relations Specialist in the European Division for 14 years.

From 2010-2014 she served on a detail from CBP to ISN/ECC as the EXBS Advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan. She was also an International Affairs Specialist at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters from 1992-2001, where she administered maritime safety and security training and technical assistance programs for over sixty countries in Europe and Africa.

Karen is the mother of two adult children (a son and a daughter) and grandmother of two small girls.