Press Release - President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

•      Adam H. Sterling – Ambassador to the Slovak Republic, Department of State

•      Morton H. Halperin – Member, Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

•      Dain Borges – Member, National Council on the Humanities

•      Thavolia Glymph – Member, National Council on the Humanities

•      Deborah Wong – Member, National Council on the Humanities

President Obama said, "I am confident that these experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service. I look forward to working with them."

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Adam H. Sterling, Nominee for Ambassador to the Slovak Republic, Department of State

Adam H. Sterling, a career member of the Foreign Service, class of Counselor, currently serves as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, a position he has held since 2013. He served concurrently as Charge d'Affaires in The Hague from 2013 to 2014. Previously, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan from 2010 to 2013, with service as Charge d'Affaires from 2010 to 2011 and during 2012. Mr. Sterling served as Director for Central and Eastern European Affairs on the National Security Council staff from 2006 to 2009 and as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2005 to 2006. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1990, he has also served at posts in Israel, Kazakhstan, Belgium, and Peru. Mr. Sterling received a B.A. from Grinnell College and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Morton H. Halperin, Nominee for Member, Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

Morton H. Halperin is a Senior Advisor at the Open Society Foundations, formerly the Open Society Institute. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation since 2013. He served at the Open Society Institute as Director of U.S. Advocacy from 2005 to 2008 and as Director of the Washington Office from 2002 to 2004. Mr. Halperin served as Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State from 1998 to 2001. He was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1996 to 1998 and served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy on the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1996. In 1993, Mr. Halperin was a consultant at the Department of Defense. Before joining the Clinton Administration, he was a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Baker Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. From 1977 to 1992, he was the Director at the Center for National Security Studies. Mr. Halperin received a B.A. from Columbia College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Dain Borges, Nominee for Member, National Council on the Humanities

Dr. Dain Borges is Deputy Dean for Master of Arts Programs and Faculty Director of the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, positions he has held since 2014. Dr. Borges is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Department of History at the University of Chicago, positions he has held since 2014 and 2001, respectively. He was also Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago from 2002 to 2009. Previously, Dr. Borges was an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, from 1995 to 2001 and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1992. Dr. Borges is a member of numerous boards and commissions, including the American Historical Association, the Conference on Latin American History, the Latin American Studies Association, and the Brazilian Studies Association. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2006. Dr. Borges received an A.B. from Harvard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Dr. Thavolia Glymph, Nominee for Member, National Council on the Humanities

Dr. Thavolia Glymph is an Associate Professor of History and an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University, positions she has held since 2010 and 2008, respectively. She was the John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History at Duke University in the fall of 2015. Dr. Glymph has also been a Faculty Research Scholar at Duke's Population Research Institute since 2013. She has been a member of numerous boards and commissions, including the Advisory Board of the Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, the Nominating Committee of the American Historical Association, the Tom Watson Brown Book Prize Committee, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Jury, the Organization of American Historians' Committee on Committees, the Executive Board of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, the Board of Contributing Editors for Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the Civil War Era and Southern Cultures, and the Advisory Council for the Lincoln Prize. Dr. Glymph received a B.A. from Hampton University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Purdue University.

Dr. Deborah Wong, Nominee for Member, National Council on the Humanities

Dr. Deborah Wong is a Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside, a position she has held since 2004. Dr. Wong was an Associate Professor of Music from 1999 to 2004 and an Assistant Professor of Music from 1996 to 1999 at the University of California, Riverside. She was an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania from 1993 to 1996 and an Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College from 1991 to 1993. Dr. Wong is the former President of the Board of Directors for the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and has been a member of Satori Daiko, the performing group of the Taiko Center of Los Angeles, since 1997. She is a former member of the board of the Society for Ethnomusicology, where she served as President from 2007 to 2009 and founded the organization's Committee on the Status of Women in 1996. Dr. Wong received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.